


The Kingdom of the Blind

by gaslightgallows (hearts_blood)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (sort of), Asexual Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Canon-Typical Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Eventual Happy Ending, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Lonely Avatar Martin Blackwood, M/M, Misuse of Beholding Avatar Powers (The Magnus Archives), Monster Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Once I figure them out, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Spoilers for The Magnus Archives Season 5, Tags Are Hard, becoming, canon-typical trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:07:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 89,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26367661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearts_blood/pseuds/gaslightgallows
Summary: There is a way for Jon to turn back the Change. To clear the slate, and see the world with fresh eyes. But for Jon - and for Martin - undoing the end of the world means changing not only themselves, but the rules of the game, hopefully for the better.But they both know things don't work like that.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 385
Kudos: 257





	1. Blindfolded

**Author's Note:**

> **AU from the end of Episode 168 (Roots).**
> 
> I was going to wait until the Act 2 hiatus to start posting this, but ya gotta strike while that hyperfixation is hot, and honestly I’m too scared to just wait and see what happens. I’ll do my best to incorporate whatever new material RQ gives me post-"Wonderland" but it’s an AU for a reason so I make the rules now and I’ll provide my own heartbreaks, thanks. Updates will hopefully be ~~weekly~~ frequently provided my wonky brain chemicals will cooperate.
> 
> If you want, you can follow me on tumblr at [gaslightgallows](https://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Thank you for reading and especially for commenting. Comments are love. ♥

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The report that Oliver Banks sends to the Eye via Jon also includes a request to Martin to please come in and talk. Just... talk. Just him.

_Please, Jon, do not interpret this report as a plea for mercy or a call to action. I would have offered it willingly, of course, but to do so is no longer an option._

_You cannot ask. You may only take. And so the scope of my domain is yours. Enter it and destroy me, if you wish. I fear the annihilation you would gift me as little as I desire it. I can do nothing to you, and you may walk the Corpse Roots in safety should you choose, though if you wish to confront me, you will have to seek me out. You know, of course, where I am._

_But know that even you, with all your power, cannot keep the world alive forever. All things end, and every step you take, whatever direction you may choose, only brings you closer to it._

_...I have, if I may, one request of you. I would like to speak with the one who walks beside you. He will come to no harm in my presence. I know that even to hint at threatening him would mean my destruction, and in any case would be to no purpose. But I would speak with him alone. Call it the repayment of a debt, if you like, for the small service I once rendered to you._

_Send him to me. The way will be clear for him to enter, and to return to you. I can’t force you to remain where you are, of course, but I do request it. The Great Beholder will know all, in time… but not yet, Jon. Not yet._

Jon stared blankly into the distance for a second or two, and then slumped. He clicked the recorder off with a sigh and stared at the small plastic device for a long time. Wondering.

He did Know where Oliver Banks was. Deep in the center of the thick forest of gnarled, tangled, creaking roots that twisted and writhed like snakes, dripping and swollen, climbing over one another until they seemed ready to burst. If he wanted to, he could find Oliver very easily. But he couldn’t Know what was inside the death avatar’s mind unless he looked, and he suspected that looking… would end badly. And whatever Oliver wanted of Martin, it was plain that he wanted to keep it private for as long as possible.

* * *

He was still sitting cross-legged on the same patch of dark, cracked ground when Martin reappeared, relief written all over his face like one of his own entirely unsubtle poems. “All finished?”

“Yes.” Jon was still staring at the tape recorder.

“O-okay… Jon? _Are_ you okay?”

“Hm? Oh, yes. This wasn’t a bad one… all things considered.” Jon gripped the sleeve of Martin’s jacket with his right hand and tugged him down. “But I think you should hear the end.”

“No, Jon. I don’t want to.”

At that, Jon looked up. He met Martin’s eyes, green clinging to pale blue. They were the wrong colors, of course. Everything was the wrong color, here. “It’s about you.”

“About m—okay. Okay.”

Jon rewound the tape, and then played back the last minute or so for Martin, whose expression quickly became one of utter confusion. “Why?” he said, when the statement was done. “Why me?”

“I don’t know. I can’t Know, not without looking far too closely.” The corner of Jon’s mouth twitched. “Maybe he heard you being jealous.”

“Yeah, and maybe he heard the part where I was egging you on to kill him. I don’t like this, Jon. This is… no one ever wants to talk to _me_. I’m not the important one here.”

“You’re important to me. And he clearly knows that. He won’t hurt you, Martin.”

“You trust him?”

Jon nodded, and his slight smile changed, from fond to something wry and dark. “They can’t lie to me now,” he said. “And Death has no need to lie to anyone.”

Martin swallowed; it was easier than it ought to have been, really. He was… uneasy. He was nervous. But he wasn’t scared. Why wasn’t he scared? Maybe he was still too wrapped up in the petty jealous feelings that had taken them both by surprise. “Will you come with me?”

“He did ask me to stay here. Whatever he wants to discuss with you, he wants it to be just you. At least for a little while. But,” Jon added, still holding a fold of Martin’s sleeve between his long, scarred fingers, “I’ll go with you, if you want me to.”

“Y… no. No,” said Martin, after a long moment. “This place is definitely making me extra-twitchy, but…” He took a deep breath. “If you trust him… then I believe you, Jon.” As he stood up, Jon’s fingers slipped from his sleeve to his hand, and held it tightly. “You’ll be here when I get back?”

“I’ll wait as long as I have to,” Jon promised.

“Okay… so… which way?”

Jon opened his mouth, and then both of them turned as the roots began to twist and slide and cry and pull away from each other, revealing a path that had not been there before. “Uh, th… that way.”

“Right.”

* * *

He was surprised, more than anything else, at how _normal_ Oliver Banks looked. In the back of his mind, Martin had expected an avatar of death to look… well… more Grim Reaper-y.

But he was just a man, maybe a few years older than Martin himself, before the Change. How had Jennifer Ling’s statement put it? “Tall, black, and careworn.” That description still seemed to fit, though Martin had to admit, uncomfortably, that he also had to add ‘extremely good-looking.’ Except for his eyes. They were… colourless wasn’t the right word, not quite. They looked like an oil slick left behind in a puddle of rainwater, iridescent and hard to hang onto.

“Martin. A pleasure to meet you at last. I’m glad to see you and Jon looking so well.”

The platitude was so bizarrely out of place and yet so earnestly polite that Martin actually laughed a little. “I… thanks, I guess?”

Oliver tilted his head slightly, studying him. Martin couldn’t meet those strange slippery rainbow eyes very well, but he could at least try not to flinch while Oliver finishing giving him the once-over, and bit back several snide comments. _“Like what you see?” “Take a picture, it’ll last longer.” “That’s right, Jon likes **comfy** guys.”_ Wait, where the hell had that last one come from?

“You, in particular, seem to be handling yourself exceptionally well.”

There was a question in his voice, a hint of surprise, even, that made Martin bristle, like a cat being touched when it very much does not wish to be. “Yeah, really, it’s _amazing_ what a lifetime of living with anxiety will do for your End-of-Days coping skills. When you’re always waiting for the world to come crashing down around you, it’s not as much of a shock when it actually does.”

Oliver Banks was still looking at him, still studying him, the way an entomologist considers a bug under a lens, and the weight of his regard was almost a physical thing. “There is… nothing else?”

_“Well, some of us weren’t able to cut ourselves off from the world before it ended!”_

_“...That’s not fair.”_

Martin’s lips curled, more sneer than smile. “Nothing else I’m willing to tell the End about myself, thanks. Maybe I’m just having a good apocalypse.”

He couldn't help laughing a little at that. But his amusement shriveled away when he saw what Oliver was holding out to him. “A blindfold? Really?”

“A formality. Insurance. Call it… lip-service to the memory of discretion.”

“You know Jon can just Know things about me, right?”

“I do, yes. I also know that he tries very hard to respect your privacy. So everything we discuss here today... well, just try not to think about it too loudly.”

Gingerly, Martin reached out and took the blindfold. It was a long strip of soft, pale leather, clean enough, which was a relief, but it looked uncomfortably like it was made out of—

Martin decided very firmly that he wasn’t going to think about it. He placed the leather against his eyes and tied the band securely around his head.

“Okay. You wanted to talk to me.”

“Yes.”

“Then talk.”

* * *

Jon couldn’t quite bring himself to put the tape recorder back in his knapsack. He wasn’t planning on using it again, but… it was something to hold. Something to fidget with. He wished he had a cigarette – not so much for the nicotine, but for the whole ritual of smoking. The lighting, the puffing, the first blissful lungful of smoke…

He looked up as the sound of footsteps began to approach. “Martin? Back again already? That was quick, I thought…” Suddenly, he sat up straight. “What do you want?"

“Oh, just to sit and pass the time. Oliver thought you might like some company while he’s talking with your partner. Tell me, do you play cards, Archivist?”

Jon looked up into the face of a pale, smiling man with dark hair and high cheekbones. “No, Mr. Thorp. No… never was any good at it.”

“Couldn’t keep track of the faces?”

“The cards weren’t the problem. I’ve just never been very good at bluffing.”

“An unfortunate lack of an asset. Do you mind if I join you?”

“Uh… no, I… suppose not.” Jon couldn’t help himself, and added, “Pull up a root.” And then he winced, as Nathaniel Thorp did just that. A fragment of a life in the process of a slow, agonizing ending tried to intrude its way into Jon’s thoughts, and he shut down the Knowing as fast and as sharply as it had begun. “Ow… oh, I’m going to regret that later…”

“You’re still resisting,” said Nathaniel, conversationally.

“…Sorry?”

“Still trying to think and act from a more human perspective. I understand. You were still new when all this happened. Still learning the rules. You’re finding your footing now, though.”

Jon frowned. “Rules? What… there are rules?”

“There are rules to every game.”

“The end of the world is hardly _a game_.”

“You not thinking of it as one doesn’t mean the others aren’t. The other avatars, I mean. That’s what you’ve been calling us, isn’t it?”

“I. Yes. It was useful terminology, which I had to make up on my own because no one’s ever mentioned that this is supposed to be some kind of sick game—”

“I didn’t say it was a game. I said the rest of us are thinking of it as one. We’ve all accepted and embraced what we’ve become. For the most part,” Nathaniel added, almost as an afterthought.

Jon looked at him warily for a few seconds, then pushed up his glasses and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “Why are you telling me this? What’s… what’s your part in the game? If, if it’s a game, then what’s your role?”

Nathaniel's grin was lopsided and, perhaps, slid just a little too low down his cheek. “These days? Strictly non-player. I just… watch from the sidelines, maybe stroll over for a chat or a nice low-stakes game of something… talk about the nature of luck versus the nature of cheating… the usual fairy tale things, really.”

This wasn’t at all the sort of talk that Jon had come to expect from the other creatures roaming the domains. Then again, it wasn’t as though the avatars of the End had anything to really _fear_ from him, did they? Yes, he could kill them, if he wanted, but… they weren’t evil. They didn’t… facilitate destruction, the way the other powers did. They just… waited for it to happen. Because it always happened, eventually. Whatever the End wanted… they got.

Eventually.

They just… had to wait for it.

“What are you waiting for, Nathaniel Thorp?”

“Hmm?” He looked up from the deck he was shuffling. Too quick for human hands, but Jon caught a glimpse of the artwork. They weren’t normal playing cards. They looked more like the pictures he’d seen on tarot cards. “Just waiting for your friend to get back from talking with Oliver.”

**“Nathaniel. What are you waiting for?”**

The former messenger of death shuddered, all over, and Jon recoiled as for a moment – an entirely too-long moment – the force of the compulsion seemed to vibrate Nathaniel’s flesh from his bones.

“Oh… that was… _strange_. Can you do that again?”

“Uh… I could, but it, it didn’t—you want me to?”

“Hmm… on second thought, no.” Nathaniel shook himself, almost like a dog after a swim, and his outsides settled back over his insides. “What I am waiting for, Archivist, what we are all waiting for, is for you to decide which game you’re going to play.”

“So that you know what rules I’m going to play by, presumably.”

“Actually, I’m more interested in what rules you’re going to break.”

“I told you. I can’t bluff. I haven’t got the face for it.”

Nathaniel looked at him keenly, with eyes like oil on water. Jon gazed back, tired and vigilant.

“Hmm. Would you like to see some card tricks, Archivist?”

* * *

“You’re as interesting to see as he is, you know. In your own way. Claimed by both the Eye and the Lonely, touched – to lesser degrees – by the Spiral, the Stranger, the Web, the Corruption, and the Vast.”

“I only met Simon Fairchild once, and he didn’t... I mean, there was no—”

“I said touched, not marked.”

“...Okay, he did threaten me. But that’s about as relevant as saying that I’ve been touched by the End because I’ve had people I loved die.”

“It’s a glancing blow. But a touch, nonetheless.”

“And any of this is relevant how?”

“The Corruption is an outlier. But the rest... yes, I think so.”

“How? How could any of that possibly… what you do even _want_?”

“To talk. I’m simply curious, which I’m sure the Eye will appreciate, when it finally does get the information out of you. Please don’t touch that.”

Martin whipped his hand away from the blindfold; he hadn’t even realized he’d been tugging at it.

When Oliver continued, there was a smile in his voice, and it made Martin’s blood run cold, even though his words were entirely innocuous. “The Corpse Roots whisper, you see, and I couldn’t help but hear some of your very jealous mutterings.”

“Okay, so… what, d’you want me to apologize? Fine. I’m sorry I tried to convince Jon to kill you to make me feel better.”

“Martin. Even if I were still capable of feeling such emotions and desires, I would have to be insane to try and come between you and the Archivist.”

Christ, did every single avatar ship them now? First Helen and now Oliver… “So this is… just you? Wanting to talk to me? Nothing to do with—with the End?”

“The End is… indifferent. It is the End. All things end, eventually, even—”

“Even the End. Right, I get it.” Martin pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. “So you, the End, all of this, it… it doesn’t care.”

“‘Care’ doesn’t exist anymore.”

“Says you. Fine, what… what is the goal of the End, under these circumstances?”

“In this changed world, there is only death. There is no birth. So all will end, given time. How much time is not known to any, not even to the Ceaseless Watcher. But it is apparent to my patron that when there are no more humans, and no more animals, then there will cease to be fear, and one by one, the other entities will cease as well. This is of no concern to us. It will come, one day, whether the Archivist wrought the Change or not.”

“Leave him out of this,” Martin growled.

“He is a part of it, no matter how you try to fog the truth. You would do him a greater service to accept that truth.”

“Shut. Up.”

“As you like.”

“You didn’t answer my question. If the End doesn’t want anything, if it doesn’t _care_ , then why am I here being lectured at?”

“The End is, as I said, indifferent. But there are some things it sees that the Eye does not. Because the Eye cannot See itself. It relies on its servants for that. And the Eye does not plan. It doesn’t think. It can only Know. A ceaseless, pitiless, emotionless Watcher.”

“The Ceaseless Voyeur.”

“A voyeur gets pleasure out of the act, even if it feels sick about it. The Eye simply... Knows.”

“So what, you’re saying that the Eye... lacks context? Intent?”

“It has the knowledge. It has the context and the intent. It doesn’t have the... capacity, I suppose, to make the necessary connections. That’s why the Eye needs servants. And servants, as the old thinking goes, are often only out for themselves.”

“It’s – it’s not the Eye that Jon’s going to confront. It’s Elias— _Jonah_ —whatever, that _thing_ in the Panopticon tower.”

“Jon knows what path he’s walking on. But you, Martin? I see...” Oliver Banks paused, and Martin felt the staring kaleidoscope eyes studying him with dispassionate thoughtfulness. There was no sadness, no mourning for whatever lay in Martin’s future. It couldn’t even be called curiosity. He only looked at Martin, considering him for a long time with that unconcerned regard that Martin couldn’t see through the blindfold but could feel, like enormous hands, pressing him in from all sides.

“It is not a crossroads that you are approaching,” Oliver said at last, “for you came to that fork in the way long ago. I see you as two beings, each walking your own path, but only one walks with the Archivist. The other walks alone, wandering in sight of him but never seen, in calling distance but never spoken to, within reach but never reached for.”

“I chose my path already. I chose Jon.”

“You walk with the Archivist but you cannot serve him. You cannot feed him, for feeding him does not sustain you. You love him, but that love will not save you from the end that is to come. The end that you will reach regardless of the path you take.”

Martin laughed softly. “You’re not actually telling me anything I didn’t already know.”

“Then what will be your choice?”

“I... already made it?”

“To walk beside the Archivist, yes. But what will be your path, Martin Blackwood? You can’t wander two roads forever. Or three, if we count the Archivist.”

“The Eye or the Lonely, is that it? Beholding or the Forsaken? I mean... it’s pretty obvious what my choice is gonna be... isn’t it?”

“Is it?”

“…I’ve never been touched by the Web.”

“Martin Blackwood,” said Oliver, his voice almost fond now, “most of your life is quite literally a web of lies, right down to the middle name you don’t have. It is surprising to me that the Mother of Puppets never got her threads into you more completely, especially given her fondness for Jon…”

_“He’s more powerful here than he’s ever been, isn’t he? And you’re not sure what that means for you.”_

_**“Does he even need you at all?”** _

“But of course, the Lonely was there first, and then the Eye claimed you. And now, of course, the Archivist knows you. Thoroughly.”

Something about the way the servant of death said ‘thoroughly’ made Martin feel altogether too… seen.

“Okay, I think we’re done here.”

This time, when he reached for the blindfold and tore it off, Oliver made no objection.

* * *

“So I just had a very interesting conversation with the emissary of death who woke you out of your coma and who, you failed to mention, is much handsomer than me.”

“I.... would debate that.”

“Which, that he woke you up or that he’s handsomer than me?”

“The latter, of course!”

Martin scoffed. “C’mon, Jon, he’s _gorgeous_. Apart from the… weird eyes.”

“Handsomer than me? And my weird eyes?”

“I.” Martin stared at Jon, who was openly grinning at him. “I am not going to dignify that with a response.”

They picked up their packs and began their journey to the next domain.

“He’s not, you know.”

“What?”

“More handsome than you. I mean, to me.”

“Wow. Thanks. If you tried, I think you could make that even more non-committal!” Martin heard the snideness in his own voice and winced, but part of him desperately wanted Jon to either shut up or… basically just shut up.

“Sorry, I just… you’re really cute when you’re jealous? I’m not saying you should make a habit of it,” Jon added, studiously not looking at Martin’s now flaming cheeks, “but as a reaction…” He laughed a little. “I guess I’m just too stunned that anyone would be jealous over _me_. That’s literally never happened before. I—Martin? Are—why the hell are you laughing?”

“Jesus Christ, Jon, you can literally Know everything in the fucking world except for what’s right in front of your face.” Martin grabbed Jon’s shoulder and pulled him in for an unexpected and very firm kiss. “I _love_ you. Of course you’re worth being jealous over.”

“All right. If you say so.” Jon rested his cheek against Martin’s chest for a moment or two, smiling against his jacket.

“Damn right I do.”

“So,” Jon asked, after they had been walking for a while, “you had an… interesting conversation with Oliver Banks?”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah, it was… a lot of… weirdness.”

Jon made a ‘what else did you expect?’ sound. “What kind of ‘weirdness’?”

“Said he was glad we were handling the apocalypse so well, for one. Yeah,” Martin added, when Jon stopped and stared at him, mouth slightly agape, “that was my reaction. Also, he thinks we make a cute couple.”

“Please tell me there was more to your exchange than us being the hot celebrity couple at the end of the world.”

“Oh, there was a lot of… fluff. You know. Spooky cryptic talk. I guess that’s appropriate for the death guy. But he said something about… the Eye… and why it needs servants. Because it can’t bridge the gap between facts and context and intent. And how maybe… it couldn’t necessarily trust _all_ of its servants.”

“…Huh,” said Jon.

“Jon, I-I think he was talking about Elias.”

“Possibly… Was there anything else?”

“Uh… one other thing. I don’t think it was important, but it… it was just… weird. The way he kept saying ‘the one that walks beside you.’”

“It’s a weird phrase, I will admit.”

“You know what it’s from, right?”

“I… you’ll need to be more specific, I’m…” Jon blinked and grimaced. “I’m getting a lot of ‘hits,’ as it were.”

“It’s from a poem, Jon.”

“Ah, well. That explains it.”

“T.S. Eliot. It’s from…” Martin stopped. “Damn it,” he sighed. “It’s from ‘The Wasteland.’”

Jon’s eyes glowed copper-green for a moment.

_“‘Who is the third who walks always beside you?  
When I count, there are only you and I together  
But when I look ahead up the white road  
There is always another one walking beside you…’_

“Ngh… Is that the one?”

“Yeah, that’s… that’s where it’s from. …Bit on-the-nose, if you ask me. Not to mention, clichéd.”

A very surprised laugh jerked from Jon’s throat. “You are such a poetry snob.”

“It’s true! I mean, here we are, walking through literal wastelands, and that’s the bit of verse the avatar of death decides he’s going to tease me with?”

“Better that than sending a former grim reaper with card tricks and games theory to distract me from Knowing what you and Oliver were talking about.”

“Wait, what? Seriously?”

“Mhmm. Nathaniel Thorp.”

“The guy that cut off his finger during a statement?”

“The very one. It was just more of the same… trying to get me to ‘accept my nature’, et cetera, et cetera… Honestly, I don’t know why they keep bothering. I’ve already accepted that I’m a monstrous being who kills other monstrous beings, so I’m not sure how much farther they need me to fall before they’ll shut up and stop pestering us.”

Martin sighed. “Jon, how many times have we been over this? You need to stop—”

“No,” said Jon sharply, “what I _need_ , Martin, is for you to acknowledge that I. Am. A. Monster.”

“But. You’re. Not. And what _I_ need is for you to stop calling yourself that.”

“Than what am I? Hmm? Because you can’t seem to decide. You keep waffling between ‘Jon is an innocent victim’ and ‘Jon is an eldritch anti-hero who can kill avatars just by looking at them.’ And honestly, it’s kind of giving me whiplash.”

“Well, what do you expect me to do, Jon? Tell me, how—how do you _want_ me to treat you? Because if you just insist on seeing yourself as an irredeemable hellspawn—”

“It’s got nothing to do with redemption. That’s—that’s not even a concept I can wrap my brain around. What I want, what I _need_ is for you to accept that I am a monstrous demigod of Beholding. I _need_ you to stop trying to wrap me in cotton wool to protect me from the fact that _I caused all of this_.”

Martin stared stonily at him. “No. Sorry. You’ve got my love and support, Jon, and you know that. But I’m not going to let you blame yourself for all of this. You were _used_.”

“Christ, you’re not even listening to me.”

“Well, sorry that I’m just too human to get it, I guess! I’m sorry that I didn’t just _commit_ myself entirely to the Lonely so that I could _comprehend_ what the dread servant of the Eye is trying to convey to my tiny mortal mind!”

“I—I never wanted that for you.”

“Neither did I. And I never wanted this for you, Jon, but y’know what? It is what it is! So let’s just—keep walking, okay?”

“Okay, fine. Fine!”

And so they walked.

“Martin?”

“What.”

“I’m… sorry. I shouldn’t have…”

“Demanded that I start believing that you’re a monster because of all the things that’ve been done to you? And that you were forced to do, against your will?”

“I’m sorry I got angry about it. That is what I feel, but… I shouldn’t have tried to make you feel differently. I just… wanted us to be on the same page, about things? Stupid. It was a stupid thing to feel and I’m sorry.”

“It’s… Jon, look. Stupid emotions are still real emotions. After everything you’ve gone through, I can’t really blame you for feeling the way you do, but… I can’t share it. I can’t see you as a monster.”

“But you can see me as a smiter of monsters.”

“Well… yeah, but I mean, that’s—that’s different! They’re just… evil. They enjoy making people afraid.”

Jon glanced sidelong at him and then huffed out a laugh. It sounded strained. “I can’t argue with that.”

He took Martin’s hand in his burned one and they walked on. But it didn’t escape Martin’s notice that Jon could have argued with him, that he could have easily said that he also enjoyed making people afraid now… and that so did Martin.

Jon didn’t say it. And Martin was too afraid of what it might mean, to say it aloud.


	2. Interstitial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are many things, large and small, that the Archivist and his companion still need to learn about one another… and there is a phone call that they can no longer avoid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly: aaaaaahhhhhhhhh [look at the art glitchingicarus did of the card trick scene from Chapter 1](https://glitchingicarus.tumblr.com/post/628928649670819840/hmm-would-you-like-to-see-some-card-tricks)! I love!!!!
> 
> Chapter covers Episodes 169-173 (some more in-depth than others). Warnings for burns, scar tissue, discussion of traumatic experiences with fire, physical therapy, discussion of the deaths of family members, isolation, depression, depersonalization, manipulative tendencies.
> 
> Definitely getting further into AU territory with this chapter, but I don’t yet know when we’re going to leave canon behind entirely. Probably whenever the chapters catch up with the releases and collide. (For reference, this chapter was posted after the release of Episode 178. …I need to write faster.)
> 
> Just know that I am going to wring this tragedy like a wet dishtowel for every last drop of happiness that I can find, and then chuck the towel into the wash.
> 
> Thank you for reading and especially for commenting. Comments are love. ♥

**[tape clicks on]**

“Here we go... nothing like a nice cup of tea after a long day.”

“Martin, all we did was walk to the village and back.”

“Not true! We also looked at cows.”

“Mm. Quite a lot of cows.”

“Very good cows.”

“Well, I’m delighted you thought so. They definitely liked you.”

“They mostly liked the carrots I brought back from the shop. Don’t snort at me, I did try to save some for dinner.”

“Of course you did.”

“So how long’s it been since you did the stretches?”

“What? What stretches?”

“For your hand. Stretches. Exercises. The physio? I know you had a list of exercises you were supposed to do, to try and get some range of motion back. I also know you haven’t been doing them, because you’re currently using two hands to hold a mug, and it looks like an effort.”

“It, ah, it is. I did try to keep up with the exercises for a while, but... I think that’s rather a lost cause at this point, don’t you? It’s barely even a hand anymore, just a... vaguely hand-shaped lump of scar tissue clinging to bone.”

“Hardly. You’ve still got all your fingers, and you can move your thumb.”

“For all the good they do me. I had to do my best to learn how to write with my left hand. Not that I think anyone noticed.”

“No, Jon, for all your many sterling qualities, readable penmanship has never been one of them.”

“Still... it’d be nice to be able to hold a mug properly.”

The sound of clothes rustling, and sofa springs creaking slightly.

“Jon? D’you mind if I...? I mean, I’ve helped with some physio before, so…”

“No, no... go ahead.”

“Is this okay?”

“Yes... you’re—your hands feel... gentle. Nice.”

“I, uh… Thanks. Can I try flexing your fingers? See how much scar tissue’s there, how much range of motion you’ve still got?”

“...All right.”

“It’s going to hurt.”

“When does it not? …Ah…”

“Don’t hold your breath, Jon. Try to breathe through it… How much feeling do you still have?”

“I... n-not a lot in the fingers or palm. More on the back of the hand. Ah…”

The sound of wincing, of restrained pain.

“Easy, Jon… There, all done. Not too bad, all things considered.”

“Oh, good, good.. ow.”

“Sorry, sorry! I was just—trying to h—”

“It’s fine, Martin, I promise. Though you’re, heh. You’re welcome to kiss it and make it better. Oh! I—I felt that.”

“Really? I,I, um... good. Good! So, what do you say to me helping you exercise your hand? Maybe once a day?”

“Martin… you don’t have to.”

“I want to _help_ you, Jon. I don’t mind.”

**[tape clicks off]**

* * *

They hurried from Jude Perry’s smoldering domain as fast as their singed boots would carry them. Martin still coughing, and practically blinded by smoke and tears, could only follow where Jon led.

“Here, this is far enough,” Jon said, almost hauling his partner to a dry patch of waste ground that was only acceptable as a place to rest compared with everything else around it.

Martin collapsed in a heap, hacking and spitting out gobs of sooty phlegm, while Jon sat on his pack and waited. When he could breathe clearly again, Martin lay there at Jon’s feet, shivering. “You okay?”

“No, Jon, I’m not okay! I am, I’m…” He felt Jon’s hand on his hair and curled closer against Jon’s legs. “Give me a minute. Please.”

“We’re not in a hurry,” Jon soothed, as best he could.

Martin closed his eyes tightly, and for a moment, one brief, butterfly of a moment, he could believe that he was lying on the grass outside the cabin, half-asleep on a warm day, and Jon was sitting next to him, his back against a tree, one hand occupied with his book while the other stroked Martin’s hair.

It was bliss. And then it was gone.

“We should have gone around,” he heard Jon mutter. “I shouldn’t have—Martin, I’m so sorry.”

“I made you choose.” His voice sounded hollow. “You tried to give me the option and I turned it back on you.”

“It’s not your fault. You were right, I shouldn’t have… Anyway, it’s done. She’s dead.”

“For all the good it did.”

Jon laughed. At least, he made a sound that reminded Martin of a laugh. “Can’t win ‘em all.”

In the side pocket of Jon’s pack, in the periphery of their notice, the recorder clicked on. It had become such a part of their existence that the little sound barely registered, anymore.

“I didn’t know you had such a f… such an adverse reaction to fires, and burns. Do you… can you tell me…?”

Martin lifted a slow hand to Jon’s ankle, gripping the rough fabric of his trouser leg. “…It was Christmastime. I was little, maybe four or five. I think I was in my granddad’s room, watching TV. I don’t remember what we were watching. ‘Mary Poppins,’ maybe? No, it was ‘Bedknobs and Broomsticks.’ He liked that film. My dad was... oh, hell if I know. He was in the house though. And Mum was alone in the living room, decorating.

“She’d made me promise to come and get her for the end of the movie, when all the suits of armor come to life. It was her favorite part and she didn’t want to miss it. So when the movie was getting near that spot, I got down off my granddad’s lap and ran down to the living room.

“It was quiet, which surprised me. I think I thought she’d have the radio on, for Christmas music or church music, _something_. There was a lot of music in the house, when I was little. But there was nothing. I called out to her.  ‘Mama, gdzie jesteś?’ [1] She didn’t answer, and that’s when I smelled it. Singeing, burning... meat.

“I was never really clear on what she was doing near the fireplace... maybe putting out decorations? Fixing the fire? I dunno. But she’d lost her balance, or she’d just passed out. Either way, she fell over, right into the fire.

“It was a big fireplace, and most of her upper body was in the fire. And I just… my mind went blank. I couldn’t process what I was seeing. I mean, I was five. And then I just freaked out, Jon. I was screaming and crying, and I was trying to pull her out of the fireplace. It didn’t work, she was too heavy for me to move, so I-I climbed over her and was trying to push her out of the way.

“It was so hot on my back and legs, I thought I was melting. I kept thinking of birthday candles that I couldn’t blow out. But I couldn’t move her.

“It seemed like I was pushing at my mom forever, but it probably wasn’t even a full minute. My granddad heard my screaming and came downstairs – he was in his eighties then but when he needed to, he could _move_. He plucked me out of the fireplace and then rolled mum out of harm’s way. He was muttering and cursing in Polish, and-and then he was praying.

“He put me in his chair and told me to stay put. ‘Stay put, mały chłopiec.’ He always called me that. Little boy. I like to think he’d still call me that, even though I’m probably taller now than he ever was. I heard him calling for my dad. And then Dad was shouting. And then Mum... Mum was screaming.

“After that, everything’s a blur. An ambulance showed up and there were people in the living room, people in bright jackets. They looked me over and said I wasn’t hurt, that I barely had a bad sunburn. They said I was a brave boy for trying to help… My mum was on the sofa while they worked on her... Her face was fine, somehow, but her shoulder and arm were all... they were... charred. Like... like a steak that Dad had left too long in the pan.

“I started screaming after that. My granddad brought me upstairs and put me in a cold bath, while my dad went with Mum in the ambulance. She was in hospital for a long time, and she was never the same, after she came home. Oh, her arm healed, but she couldn’t ever use it properly again, and the way it looked when the bandages came off... it made me... sick. Because all I could see when I looked at it was that image of a charred, lifeless steak.

“I found out, years later, that they’d done some tests on her while she was in hospital, and... well, let’s just say that wasn’t the last fall she had in her life.

“I don’t think we ended up bothering with Christmas that year. Or any other year.”

Jon helped Martin sit up, and with a mostly clean bandanna from his pack, cleaned his face. He eased his left hand into Martin’s, who squeezed his fingers gratefully.

* * *

**[tape clicks on]**

_“This house... belongs to no one. Who can it belong to, when there is no one here to claim it? That’s absurd, you think, because you are here... aren’t you?_

_“Perhaps._

_“But you are... no one._

_“You wander through the rooms, but they are all the same, right down to the uncomfortable metal chairs and the unlit logs in the fireplace, damp from the fog rolling in through the open windows. There is nothing here to comfort you, nothing to remind you of those who love you – or even those whom you love._

_“You pass by shadows, and think you have found someone you know. But it is only a mirror, tarnished with age and damp from the fog. You wipe off the glass, and see nothing. Only a pale outline where your reflection should be._

_“Were you ever really here at all? No. Why should you be? You... are no one._

_“The fog comes in thicker now, bringing with it a faint tang of brine… and something rotten underneath.”_

**[tape clicks off]**

* * *

“Jon? If I had… if you hadn’t been able to find me, in the Lonely… would you have been okay? I mean—would you have… gone on. Kept going.”

Jon didn’t answer for a long time, and when he did, there was a weariness to his voice that was somehow different from his normal bone-deep exhaustion. As though he had been anticipating the question, and now that it had been asked, a vital mental prop had been removed. “…Can I ask why you want to know?”

“Just… wondering.”

They walked on.

“I wasn’t lying, you know. I didn’t want to stay there. But I… just—if something happens to me—”

“ _Nothing_ is going to happen to you,” said Jon. “I won’t let it.”

“You can’t fight the world. You said so yourself. And I’m… I’m not as strong as you are.” Jon snorted. “You know it’s true. I’m not… I don’t have powers like yours. If something—takes me… will you be able to go on?”

There was another silence, and then Jon said, very, very quietly, “Why are you asking me this, Martin?”

“Because I need to know.”

Jon looked at him. “No, it’s… it’s more than that.”

“Stop it.”

“I’m not Knowing anything, Martin, I just—I know you. I know you well enough to realize—”

“To realize what, exactly? Why does there have to be an ulterior motive for everything? Can’t I just be concerned about what’ll happen to you if I _die_? Or _worse_?” And Jon didn’t argue with that, because they both knew full well that there were plenty of worse fates than death, especially when death now seemed both temporary and arbitrary in its impermanence.

“N-no, that’s not what I…” Jon stopped short, took a deep breath, and started again. “You have every right to be concerned.”

“Then please, just answer the question.”

“…No, Martin. I wouldn’t be okay. I would keep going, because… because that’s what we’ve set out to do. It’s what I’m being compelled to do. The Eye specifically dragged us out of the cabin because it wants me crossing the domains and reporting on them first-hand, for some goddamned reason. If I had lost you to the Lonely… or if you died… I’d keep moving but I would be broken. And I don’t think I’d have the strength to confront Elias when I reached him. Or even the desire. I’d just…” Jon looked away. “Honestly, at that point, I’d probably let the Lonely take me, too. If it wanted what was left of me.”

“Jon, I…” Martin pulled him close and held him tightly, and Jon clung to him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked, I, I should’ve… known, I guess.”

“No. I shouldn’t have assumed, especially not after… well, everything. I just… I thought I’d been clear enough.”

“I mean, you did call me your ‘reason’ for going on.”

“I did. I meant it. And… reason in the more metaphorical sense, too. If there’s anything keeping me sane in this place… it’s you.” Jon’s smile was bitter but real. “For whatever passes for sanity, these days.”

Martin closed his eyes and rested his head on Jon’s tangled hair, and for a moment, the feeling and the smell of Jon were enough to drive out the sound of the wind howling around them, and the shreds of Lonely fog looming in his heart. “I needed to hear you say it,” he muttered. “I needed to know that… that you…” He swallowed hard against the sobs building in his throat. “Still need me.”

Jon drew back with a question in his eyes, but although Martin waited, and wondered how to explain, Jon couldn’t seem to bring himself to ask. Instead, he shook his head, and gripped Martin’s right hand tightly in his left. “Come on,” he said. “Not far to the next one.”

* * *

**[tape clicks on]**

“Did you… did you _really_ think the Boneturner’s garden was beautiful?”

“I thought it was terrifying, and agonizing, and hideous… and yes, beautiful. It was a product of love.”

“Sick, twisted love, maybe.”

“You won’t find many other kinds here.”

“Mph. …Thanks for that. I think.”

“Martin…”

The sound of clothes rustling.

“…Then again, you _are_ the one tagging along after the Beholding’s census-taker.”

“Honestly, Jon, I’m not sure what’s worse, the idea of you as a primordial demigod of fear, or the idea of you as a government employee.”

“Neither am I. The employment benefits for both jobs are pretty crap.”

**[tape clicks off]**

* * *

They stopped for a rest once they were safely away from the Web’s domain, though how much either of them could ever be said to be ‘safe’ from the Web was, to Jon’s mind, debatable. But they found a place to drop their packs and collapse with their backs against the remains of a tractor. It cut down on a little of the wind, at least.

“I didn’t know you disliked theatre,” Jon sat, after a very long time of staring at the bleak landscape. It had been a farm, he Knew, but he tried not to think too much about what things used to be. It wasn’t… productive.

Martin sighed and leaned his head back, closing his eyes to momentarily shut out the giant Eye looking down. “I liked reading plays in school, but the whole performance aspect… dunno, I guess I just never enjoyed the feeling of being the center of attention.”

“Ah. Forced into the school play one too many times?”

“Yup.” Martin snorted and, without opening his eyes, raised his arm so that Jon could press closer to his side. Jon closed his eyes as well, and relished the feeling of safety and comfort and of a touch that would not hurt him. “What about you?”

“Honestly, I… used to enjoy live theatre very much. I liked the… ephemeral nature of the performance, I suppose. It kept things from getting boring.”

“Huh. Wouldn’t have pegged you for a drama nerd.”

“I,I wasn’t _really_ , I just… liked plays.” Martin looked over at him and smiled, rubbing Jon’s shoulder fondly, but his expression was more shuttered than Jon was comfortable with. “Something else on your mind?”

“Heh. Sometimes, you just… really hit the nail on the head, y’know?”

Jon sat up. “Martin.”

“What if… Jon, I don’t want you to Know, but… if I did… If the Web _was_ influencing me, would you even be able to tell?”

“I…” Jon sighed and concentrated. His eyes began to glow like a driftwood fire.

“Don’t, don’t do that!”

“I’m not Looking at you, Martin, I’m just… Looking. In general. I promise.” After a moment or two, though, Jon sighed and shook his head. “It’s… it’s everywhere. The Web’s influence. The threads spread out over all the domains and through all the people and even most of the avatars.”

“Even us?”

“I said I wouldn’t Look at you and I didn’t, but… I suspect so, yes. As for me… I’ve never really ever gotten away. The Web…” He huffed. “ _Likes_ me.”

A muscle in Martin’s cheek twitched, and there was a hardness to his jawline that Jon was not accustomed to seeing. “What about me?” he demanded. “Does it like me?”

“I… don’t understand.”

“Just answer the question, Jon, please.”

“…Yes,” said Jon slowly, “I… I think it does. But for different reasons. I’m…” He took a moment to steady himself. He wanted to take Martin’s hand but Martin was holding himself so stiffly just now, it seemed like a bad idea. “It likes toying with me. It knows I’m terrified of—of being manipulated. Of my choices not being my own. You, though… you’re good at it.”

“At… what?”

“At manipulation. At lying. You spent ten years building up an entire CV and personality that didn’t exist, and no one at the Institute ever would have known, if I hadn’t forced you to tell me. And you spent a very solid year convincing Peter Lukas that you were so determined to save my life that you would sacrifice your own to prevent the Extinction.”

“That wasn’t a _lie_.”

“The core of your motivations was true, but the rest? A web of lies.”

“So what? You think I’ve been manipulating you all this time? For the _Web_?” Martin stared at him, eyes a pale accusatory shadow of what they had once been. “Jon, how c—I…”

“No,” he said softly. “I don’t think that. I know it’s not true. You’re a natural-born manipulator, yes, and the Web would love to have you, but… for the most part? You actively choose _not_ to.” Jon smiled slightly. “D’you think I haven’t noticed how you never let me take the easy road, for your sake?”

All the tension that Martin had been holding in his spine and jaw seemed to bleed away in one sudden rush, leaving him slumped and shaking. Jon leaned forward and pressed his forehead against Martin’s cheek.

* * *

“Was that what you wanted?” asked Jon, rubbing his temples as the report on the Dark’s domain of children loosed its grip on his brain. “What you needed?”

“No. No, it didn’t help at all.” Martin’s voice trembled as he spoke, and Jon’s heart bled. He had tried to explain, to show Martin, but he… there was a block there that he just couldn’t get past.

“I’m sorry.”

“Let’s get out of here,” said Martin.

Jon rose from the pavement, and the dim island under the street lamp. “If you’re sure.”

“The sooner we get back to the Archives, the sooner we can put a stop to this. All of this. They just—” Martin took a deep breath. “They’ll just need to hang on a little longer.”

“Right.” Jon sighed in defeat and settled his pack. “Right.”

“Come on.”

They hurried away from Callum Brodie’s house, dodging from street lamp to street lamp. It reminded Jon of games he had played in childhood. Trying to only step on the black squares of lino in his grandmother’s kitchen. A hundred different variations of ‘The Floor is Lava.’ Walking down an ill-kempt sidewalk and hop-skip-jumping over the splits spidering through the concrete. Step on a crack, break your father’s…

“Please say something.”

Jon sighed. “What do you want me to say, Martin? Do you want me to be comforting? Because…”

“No, just… say something. Anything. Tell me how stupid I’m being, I don’t care, just… I can’t handle the silence right now. It… it makes the things in the dark too loud.”

“I know… I know how that feels.”

Martin felt smooth, lean fingers curling into his palm. “It’s _scary_ here, Jon,” he whispered. “And I know that’s the whole point, but… I’ve been doing okay, mostly? I’ve got you, and—and in between the domains, it isn’t so bad. I can’t see or hear anything… so I don’t have to think about it. I can catch my breath.”

“I can’t,” said Jon softly. “I can’t ever catch my breath. I just… the option isn’t really there. Yes, I can control some of the Knowing, at least as far as you’re concerned, but as far as the rest of the world goes… it’s always there, pressing against the backs of my eyes and the inside of my skull, and I can’t open the floodgates to relieve that pressure… and I can’t ever entirely turn it off, either.”

* * *

The payphone under the street lamp on the corner rang as they passed it, splitting the night with a jangling dissonance. Martin just looked at Jon. “Your turn.”

Jon sighed.

He walked over to the callbox and picked up the receiver. “Annabelle.”

“Hello there, Archivist. I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for ages!”

Jon angled the phone slightly so that Martin, hovering nearby, could hear the creature on the other end. “I might call that a poor choice of words.”

“Hmm. Or an apt one. Is your boyfriend still with you? Martin, I think his name is?”

“Don’t.”

“Really, Jon, with the way you’re behaving, I’m surprised he hasn’t wandered off on his own by now. He’d do quite well with us, I think. We’ve had our eyes on him for a long time… and he’s always been very kind to spiders…”

“Whatever the Web’s business is, it’s with me. Leave him alone or I will _find you._ ”

“That’s almost tempting enough to make me try something.”

Jon let out a growl that would have done a Hunter proud. “You said you’ve been trying to get in touch with me. Fine. What do you want.”

“To honor an old alliance. There are still an awful lot of loose ends to be tied up. We know what you’re after, Jon. We can help. You just need to trust us.”

“Somehow, I don’t think that trusting the Web will result in much of a future for me, no matter what happens when I reach the Panopticon.”

Annabelle’s laugh sounded like shattered glass. “The Eye does not care about the future, Archivist, you know that. The past, the present, all of that is open to the Ceaseless Watcher, but the future is unwritten, so it matters not to the Eye.”

“And I suppose you’re going to tell me that it matters a great deal to the Mother of Puppets.”

“Of course. ‘Mother’ is right there in her name, after all.”

“Hmph. And I’m sure that ‘Mother’ doesn’t much care to be under the constant watch of the Eye.”

“Oh Jon, she’ll be so pleased to know you called her that.”

“Don’t push it.”

“Why not? Pushing is fun, as I know you’ve discovered. Pushing and prodding and _insinuating_ , maybe with a bit of manipulation or a casual threat here and there—”

“Annabelle,” said Jon through clenched teeth. “You said you could help.”

“Jon,” said Annabelle, with exquisite patience, “I _am_ helping. You’re just not listening.”

“I am listening, Annabelle. I am listening very, very _intently_. But I don’t understand. I’m not a liar, I’m not a planner, I’m not a, a manipulator – I have nothing to feed the Web _with_.”

“Except for yourself, of course. You carry your food with you. Which we’ve always found very sensible.”

“I am _not_ ‘feeding’ on Martin,” said Jon, glancing over at the man in question and seeing Martin’s eyebrows shoot up so far, they disappeared under his hair.

“Aren’t you? And you say you’re not a liar, Jon... But as usual, you’re being far too literal. I’d have thought you would have learned better by now. You’re not a liar and you’re not a planner, no... but you understand the power of _words_ , Archivist. You know how much they can _hurt_. How much you can make people _fear_ you... and doubt themselves... all while you barely raise a finger.

“Think it over. Maybe go find a nice quiet dead zone where you and your boyfriend can… discuss things. After all, you’re in this together now.”

She laughed softly, and the line went dead.

Jon hung up the phone and turned to Martin.

“What,” said Martin, “and I cannot stress this enough—the fuck?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. ‘Mama, where are you?’ (Polish) (according to Google Translate) [back]
> 
> There was a very obvious “Turn Off the Dark” joke that I could have made in this chapter. Please applaud my restraint.


	3. Looking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one who walks beside the Archivist briefly takes a different path, and there is a reunion. Also, Helen's here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for isolation, anxiety, perceived abandonment, distorted reflections.
> 
> I have officially given up any attempts at a reasonable update schedule. The dire possibilities of this season loom large and ominous in the distance, so I’m just gonna bang out as many chapters as I can before There’s No Going Back. 
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who’s been able to comment and leave kudos so far. Obviously people have… a lot on their plates right now, so I’m very honored that you’d take time out of your lives to read and leave feedback. It really means a lot. ♥

As badly as they wanted to leave the neighborhood of identical houses and terrible noises in the dark, Jon and Martin shucked off their knapsacks and sat down on the curb beside the payphone. The circle of light from the street lamp hardly felt adequate to the darkness pressing in around them, but the Archivist pressed closer to his companion, and ignored it.

“What the hell does it all mean?”

“I don’t know, Martin.” Jon sheltered under Martin’s arm and reached out with his mind, trying to See, trying to Know what he was supposed to do next. What he was expected to do next. The answer, when he got it, didn’t surprise him… but it didn’t exactly make him happy, either. “The Beholding wants me to go to Hill Top Road.”

Martin’s entire body tensed, and his hand gripped Jon’s shoulder more tightly. “It still exists, then.”

“Yes. It was always too much of the Web to ever be completely destroyed. And the Eye wanted it to remain. It wants to know its secrets.”

“…Please tell me we’re not going there.”

Jon huffed softly. “I certainly don’t _want_ to go there.”

“Is Annabelle there?”

“I have no idea. I still can’t See her. And I’m… not especially keen to confront her. ”

“Really? I’d’ve thought you be eager to finally get a chance to take her down.”

“To ‘smite’ her? To be honest, Martin, I’m not even sure if turning Annabelle’s own fear on her would work – not because she’s immune to it, exactly, but… I don’t know. I _don’t know_. And that lack of certainty… it could be fatal.”

“O-okay,” said Martin, plainly unsure himself.

“I know we need to go there, eventually. And I know I’m not ready.”

“Why? What’s so damn important about Hill Top Road?”

“The scar.” Jon drew in a deep breath. “The strange scar in reality, created by decades of the power of the Web and the Desolation colliding and rubbing and irritating that one small spot.”

“Like a… cosmic bedsore?”

“…Not the comparison I would have gone with, but yes, I suppose.”

“Wasn’t there a statement from someone who got dragged through that scar?”

“Yes… I still don’t quite understand it… but she – Anya Villette was her name – came from somewhere else, confused and unwilling, into our world, where she didn’t exist and no one knew who she was.”

“So, it’s a doorway to a parallel universe.”

“Potentially, I suppose. Whatever that means, under the circumstances. I don’t really have a framework for parallel realities. I only know that the last time I went to Hill Top Road, I got a statement from Annabelle with very explicit instructions to _not_ visit the house again. And I’d really like to honor those instructions… but I know I won’t be able to avoid the place forever.”

“Jon… what if you jump?”

“What?”

“If you go there… what if the Eye wants to know about that break so badly that you feel... compelled to jump into it? To see what’s on the other side?”

“...Then...”

“You won’t be able to resist it, will you.”

Jon’s smile was twisted. “When have I ever been able to resist my own curiosity? But try not to worry, okay?” He squeezed Martin’s knee reassuringly. “We won’t get there for a while yet.”

“That’s not super-comforting.”

“Best I can do, I’m afraid.”

“Look, Jon, can’t we just—” Martin raked an anxious hand through his hair, wincing as his fingers snagged on the curls. Then he started again, forcing a calmness into his voice that he wasn’t entirely sure he felt. “Can we take a break?”

“That’s… what we’re doing.”

“No, I mean, is there somewhere safe where we can _rest_ for a few days? Sort of… get our bearings back, you know?”

Jon twisted round on the curb to look Martin squarely in the face. “This has really rattled you, hasn’t it.”

“It’s the Web, Jon.” Martin spoke with clipped, barely leashed annoyance. “Anything that involves the Web playing puppet-master games with you is very… unnerving to me.”

“Sorry.”

“…Just to be clear, I’m not mad _at_ you, I’m worried _for_ you.”

“Oh! I, um… thank you.” And he let Martin tuck him back close against his ribs.

“So. Is there someplace we can go for a day or two and just breathe?”

“Most of the houses in this development are actually empty. We should be fine squatting in one of them, if you really want to… but none of the lights work.”

“Ah. Um. No thanks.” Martin frowned. “Unless you think that’s what Annabelle meant by a ‘dead zone’?”

“I don’t quite know what to think about that little breadcrumb. Could be another domain of the End, I suppose? Or maybe someplace where fear… isn’t…”

“Jon?” Martin frowned and snapped his fingers a few times in the Archivist’s face. “Jon, you there?”

“Someplace where fear isn’t accessible,” Jon breathed. “Georgie.”

“What?”

“Georgie! Look – Georgie and Melanie, I, I can’t See them.”

“Right…”

“Melanie’s connection to the Eye was severed when she blinded herself, I knew that, but Georgie’s different. Maybe unique! It’s a long story but, she—basically she can’t feel fear. I’m not entirely sure, but it’s possible that this new reality may not be able to touch her at all.”

“…Whoa. And Melanie?”

“I don’t know! Maybe she’s able to extend some of that protection to Melanie, without even realizing it. The same way that I—”

“Okay, okay! But how do we _get_ to them?

“I…” Jon blinked, and then squinted at a house across the street, whose porch light had just turned on. He sighed. “Martin, is the door on that house yellow?”

“N—” Martin stopped, and then also sighed. “Yes.”

Without another word, they shouldered their packs and walked across the quiet residential street, Martin hanging onto a fold of Jon’s knapsack as a small talisman against the dark.

They mounted the steps onto the well-kept, personality-free suburban porch. The small windows on either side of the yellow door twinkled invitingly at them, but when the door opened to Jon’s resigned knocking, the foyer on display through the glass was emphatically not the vision they were greeted with. “And a very good evening to you two adorable boys!”

Martin grimaced. “Hello, Helen,” said Jon. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Well, you know, I was passing through, checking on all of the dear little kiddies – and I just _happened_ to overhear your little chat with Annabelle Cane.”

“Come on, Helen,” Martin pleaded, “can’t we have a little privacy?”

“Oh, well that’s gratitude for you. I’ll have you know I have been _very_ discreet. I haven’t even—”

Jon emphatically did not want to know how that sentence was going to end.

“Do you know where Georgie and Melanie are?” he interrupted.

“I might,” Helen admitted.

“Can you reach them?”

“Not quite, but I can get near enough.”

“Define ‘near’.”

“You’ll have to ask more nicely than _that_.”

“…Please.”

“Like pulling teeth with this one, isn’t it, Martin? But near enough to where you wouldn’t have to go much farther to find them.”

“Can you take Martin to them?”

“I would be _delighted_ , Archivist.” And she really looked delighted, which was… not ideal.

“What?! Jon, no. I’m not leaving you alone here—”

“I’m not thrilled about this either, but I can’t travel through Helen’s corridors anymore. It would amount to her trying to swallow the Eye itself.”

“Which, I must remind you,” Helen grinned, “would be very, very bad for many, many people.”

Jon’s answering smile was terrifyingly placid. “Once again, Helen: mostly for you.”

“So, what,” said Martin, “I just have to grit my teeth and leave you alone and _hope_ you’re able to make it to wherever I am?”

“That’s about the size of it. Look, once you’re there, I should be able to See where you are, and find you. Although it… might take a while.”

“Right. …And if you can’t find me? Are we just…?”

“Fucked? Probably.”

“Great,” Martin muttered. “I… okay, fine. Fine!”

“You’re sure?”

“Not really. But if there aren’t any other shortcuts…”

“Oh, there aren’t,” said Helen blithely.

Jon leveled a quiet gaze at her and to his surprise, her ebullience faded. He could no longer pretend ignorance of the scope of his own powers, not after everything that had happened since the end of the world, and if that meant meeting the Distortion on as equal a footing as possible, then so be it. “You know what we’re planning.”

He didn’t attempt to compel Helen. But she took his meaning.

“In broad outline,” she said, with a smile that hurt Jon’s ears. “Something about ripping what’s left of Elias to pieces and canceling the apocalypse, isn’t it?”

“In very broad outline,” he agreed, as those were literally their only ideas. Helen’s smile grew louder. “So why help me?”

“Because I like you, Jon, is that so difficult to comprehend? All the knowledge in the world and you can’t even accept that someone just likes you.”

“You’re not a ‘someone.’”

“Neither are you, when you get down to essentials. But the truth, Archivist, or as near to the truth as I can get, is that I’m bored, or at least, I will be at some point. Fear and terror and nightmares are all delightful as you know, but after a while, it’s like too many sweets at Christmas. There’s no challenge anymore.”

“And are you there yet?”

“Ohh no, not by a very long chalk. But it’ll happen eventually. Consider my help to be… hmm… insurance against that possible future.”

“One can only hope.” Jon let out a slow breath, turned to Martin, and flung his arms around him.

Martin pulled him close and held him tightly for a very long time before, reluctantly, they drew apart.

Helen pouted. “What, no kiss?”

“Oh, for god’s sake… Be careful, Martin.”

“Good luck, Jon.” He turned with his hand on the door and one foot over the threshold; the interior cacophanied in Jon’s head. “I’ll—I’ll see you on the other side, I guess.”

“Right. I lov—”

The door closed before Jon could finish his sentence.

* * *

Following her was hard. Harder still was trying not to get distracted by any of the mirrors. It had been so long since Martin had seen his own reflection that when he first caught a glimpse of himself, he didn’t recognize what he was seeing. He looked… wasted. Thin as a scarecrow, blanched and washed out, his hair almost white under the dirt and his eyes were… wrong. The wrong colour? No, just… wrong. Faded.

Then he gasped and looked again, and the image was gone, replaced with someone who looked closer to the self that Martin remembered. Tired and filthy, yes, but _him_.

The same thing happened at the next mirror. Just for a fraction of a second, Martin saw that rail-thin, ghoulish reflection, and then himself. Only himself.

The third mirror showed nothing whatsoever.

He tried not to look at the mirrors, after that, and hurried after Helen, trying to keep all of her in sight at all times, which was its own challenge.

She was in a chatty mood, and Martin doing his best keep up his end of the conversation and remember how to talk to people who weren’t Jon. After all, it was only polite. He didn’t exactly _like_ Helen, and he _definitely_ didn’t like her corridors, but at least she was willing to help, if only for the moment.

And she thought they made a cute couple. Whatever that counted for.

“Keep up!” Helen sang out, making his teeth rattle in his skull. “You definitely don’t want to get lost in here this time. I hope you’re not this careless around the Archivist. You’re going to lose track of him altogether, if you keep wandering off like that.”

“I _wasn’t_ — If he could’ve come with me, he would have, you know he would have. But he can’t.”

“Poor Martin. It’s a pity he wants you alive more than he wants me dead. Not that I want him in my corridors again, but it might be fun to watch myself be obliterated.”

“Christ... Helen, please leave me out of your weird death fantasies. If you really want Jon to try, I’m sure he’ll oblige you.”

“I don’t, and he won’t. But I do hope he’s not going to take Annabelle’s advice. Seeing him kill other avatars—well, it makes me feel all tingly.”

“Great.”

“And really, he’d make a far better host for the Eye than that self-aggrandizing _thing_ sitting all high and mighty in the Panopticon.”

“Wh-Elias? You’ve seen him?”

“Oh yes, I’ve been there, or near enough. He’s so infuriatingly smug, as though this was all his doing.”

“It was.”

“His design, not his doing. He couldn’t have done any of it without our dear Archivist. Then again, if I were him, I wouldn’t actually _want_ to take Elias’s place. I mean, who would want to, in his place? He’s the most powerful person in a world where the worst consequences imaginable have already happened! Absolute power, with zero responsibility! What’s a useless throne over the world, compared to that?”

Martin opened his mouth to agree with her – and stopped. He wasn’t sure why he stopped, because he _did_ agree with her, mostly. Jon was powerful and could do more or less whatever the hell he wanted. But the idea of equating Jon with Elias… his mind reared back from it with sudden, putrid horror.

Suddenly he didn’t want to talk about Jon. He didn’t want to even _think_ about Jon. He wanted to get away from Helen, the Distortion, the Spiral, _everything_ , leave everything behind…

He fumbled for some other topic to latch onto. “So… can I ask you a question?”

“You can ask me anything your wandering little heart desires.”

“And you’ll answer?”

“Of course!”

“…Will you answer truthfully?”

“Hmm… maybe. If the question’s interesting enough.”

“Do you remember anything about your previous, uh… incarnation? Michael? Before he found you, when he was Gertrude Robinson’s assistant.”

“Ugh, _definitely_ not interesting enough.”

“It’s interesting to me! I just… what was he like?”

“Michael was eager and helpful and helpless and pointless. So fond of his eventual murderer… It all very jumbled, you understand. So long ago… or perhaps it hasn’t really even happened yet. The only thing he was really good at was setting himself on fire to keep others warm. Metaphorically.”

“Did he know Elias? Before he took over the Institute, I mean.”

“Hmm… a little. They were not friends, by any means, but there was a kinship there.”

“How do you mean?”

“They were both very lonely.” Helen looked over her shoulder at him and laughed softly; if there had been anything in Martin’s stomach, he might have thrown up. As it was, his guts twisted very unpleasantly. “Not too surprising that you’d be curious about him, really.”

“I hope you’re not comparing me to Elias.”

“Oh darling, _never_. I was talking about Michael. But even then… no. You’ve never been that oblivious, not even the first time you ended up in my corridors, Wandering…”

“Why do you all keep saying that?” Martin demanded.

Helen stopped. She turned and looked at him with a frown that splintered in his head. “Saying what?”

“That I’m ‘wandering.’ First the guy at the Corpse Roots, then it was in my head the whole time I was trapped in the Lonely, then Annabelle, now _you_ … And the way you just said it, like… like it’s a title or something, the way Jon’s ‘The Archivist.’”

“I don’t know,” she said. “It just feels right for you. How funny.” And she stared at him.

“You didn’t even realize you were saying it?”

“No… oh, now that’s interesting. I don’t think I like that…” She began to walk again, faster this time. Or else the corridors were moving faster, he wasn’t sure. “Come on, _Martin_.”

“Hey, wh—slow down! What’s the hurry now?”

“You’re not the same. You’re changing. You feel… cold, and sandy. Salty. Like a tough, gritty oyster, and I don’t like it. So unless you want me to open a door right now and drop you into some entirely random entity’s domain: keep up.”

* * *

She dropped him off at, of all things, a bus stop.

“Goodbye, _Martin_. I do hope Jon can find his way to you soon, because that is _definitely_ the last time I’m giving you a shortcut anywhere.”

“Thanks,” he said quietly, and watched as the yellow door closed on the form of the sharp, distorted woman and the corridors with their disquieting mirrors. Then he sat down on the bus stop’s uncomfortable bench and looked around.

He was in London, or what looked like London used to be. Everything looked… normal.

No, not normal, not exactly. Just… not changed. The streets were empty of people and vehicles and the buildings that loomed overhead were almost entirely unlit. But otherwise? Everything looked and felt…

Empty.

Martin shivered.

He slipped off his knapsack and went digging for a heavier jumper to pull over the flannel button-down he’d been wearing for ages. As he tugged out the jumper, his fingers touched hard plastic. “What the…?”

It was a tape recorder, which, in the grand scheme of his life now, wasn’t actually strange. It was just that Martin was more used to the damned things _appearing_ , already running, when something interesting started happening. He peered at the tape in the deck and saw that it had stopped about halfway through. Had it been running while he was in Helen’s corridors?

He unzipped his jacket, pulled on the wool jumper, put his jacket back on, and pressed the Record button, frowning. “I guess you must’ve switched off when we crossed into this ‘dead zone’ that Annabelle was talking about,” he muttered. “Serves you right for eavesdropping.

“It’s… it’s cold here. Not-not _dark_ , exactly, but it’s… dim, like an endless shadowy twilight version of London, and most of the buildings look empty, except for a few scattered windows. Tiny little points of light… I don’t know where Georgie’s building is. Jon says she and Melanie are alive. He says that, now I’m here, he’ll be able to find me. I believe him. I just… wish I knew how long it was going to take.”

As it turned out, it took a very, very long time. Martin had never been very good at tracking the passage of time, even back when time actually meant something, but now… All he could do was sit on the bench and hug his knees to his chest, or lay on the bench with his knapsack for a pillow, as the interminable hours passed him by and the panic in his chest wound tighter and tighter and tighter.

“Jon’s still not here,” he told the tape recorder. Had it been recording the whole time? He couldn’t remember ever turning it off. “He’s not here and I don’t know how to find him. I’ve tried calling to Helen but she hasn’t come back. And… there’s fog in the dark now. I can’t see it, but I know it’s there. I feel it touching me, it’s... it’s chilly and damp and it smells like salt. But how can it be here? How did it find me here, if the Eye can’t find me? I don’t understand… I don’t…”

Martin curled into a very tight ball and then abruptly rose to his feet, pacing irritably, the recorder in his hand. “I am Martin Blackwood,” he said firmly. “Jon is coming. Jon _is_ going to find me, I know it. I believe it. I am in love. He loves me.” Suddenly a hot wave of rage crashed over Martin and he bared his teeth to the fog that he couldn’t see but that he could feel against his skin, through his clothes, surrounding and rolling around him in billows waist-high. “D’you hear me? The Archivist _loves_ me and he is _Looking_ for me, and I am looking for him and—J-jon? Jon!”

He stood and stared in delight as through the shadows, he saw the face and form of the man he loved. “Martin? Martin, where are you?”

“Jon! Jon, I’m here!” Martin waved his hands over his head frantically. “Jon! Over here!”

Jon looked around wildly, but he didn’t seem to see Martin. His voice faded, and then, so did he, folding back into the gloom.

Martin sank down onto the ground beside the bench. He wrapped his arms around his knapsack, buried his face against the tough fabric, and trembled violently. “I am… I am Martin… Blackwood,” he whispered, through his tears, terrified but determined. “I am Martin Blackwood, and the-the Archivist is Looking for me.”

How many times he repeated that mantra, he would never know, but at some point, the words began to slur together. He was so tired, so very, very tired… and… hungry? He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been hungry. In the cabin… back when the world was still a world and the sky was still a sky and Jon was still… was still…

“Martin! Martin!” A pair of narrow hands, one smoother than the other, pressed to either side of Martin’s face. “Martin, I’m here, I’m _here_.”

“I am… Martin Blackwood… and the Archivist is… is Looking…”

Jon pressed a warm, dry and very relieved kiss to Martin’s forehead. “The Archivist is here. He’s found you.”

Martin blinked the fog and tears from his eyes, and dropped his head against Jon’s chest.

* * *

They had to walk a little longer before they found the street where Georgie’s building stood; Martin hung onto Jon’s hand the whole way, happy to be silent and go where Jon led. His throat was… very dry.

The building looked abandoned, like all the others. There was no trouble getting in, and Jon knew perfectly well which floor and unit were hers. They didn’t see a single other person anywhere.

Jon stopped in front of one particular door. “This… used to have a peephole. She must’ve taken it out when… well, I can’t say I blame her.”

Gently, he knocked. And for a long time, there was no response.

When the door finally opened, they were greeted by a familiar woman with a knife in her hand, held high at the ready. “Who the fuck—”

Instinctively, Martin took a quick step back. Jon only let out a low, relieved sigh. “Hi Georgie.”

She stared at them for a few seconds. “...I don’t know whether to punch you, stab you, or hug you.”

“At this point,” said Jon, dredging up a smile, “you’re honestly welcome to do all three.”


	4. A Place to Rest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Archivist and his partner find some old friends and a place to rest away from the domains of the Fears, but there are still the fears they carry to contend with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The wonderful glitchingicarus has done [a drawing for the safehouse scene in chapter 2](https://glitchingicarus.tumblr.com/post/629473643867619328/i-uh-thanks-can-i-try-flexing-your-fingers) and it is wonderful! Please love it as much as I do and then tell them about it!
> 
> **Warnings for one brief implication of potential cannibalism; mention of a missing pet; co-showering; discussions about sex (but no actual sex).**
> 
> I did my best with the more intimate scenes, such as they are; hopefully I've hit the right note with them. I will have many things to say re: Georgie and Melanie, and their interactions with Jon, in future chapters, but in the middle of the apocalypse is not the time to say them. We'll come back to that... later.
> 
> As always, thank you so much to everyone who’s been able to comment and leave kudos so far. Feedback is love. ♥

Georgie stared at them for a good twenty seconds, before she dragged Jon into her arms and hugged him for dear life.

Thankfully, she put the knife down first.

“I thought you were dead,” she muttered, snaking her arms behind his backpack and pulling him close. “I honestly thought…”

“I can’t blame you for that,” said Jon. He closed his eyes for a second or two and remembered what it was like when she’d been his friend, when Georgie hadn’t loathed the ground he walked on and the air he breathed and the awful things he represented. It felt like he wasn’t hated anymore, at least for the space of time inside this embrace, and he wanted to hang onto that feeling.

He couldn’t be sure it would last.

“Georgie, we, I—”

“Later, Jon. Come on, get inside,” Georgie said, detaching a hand to beckon to Martin. “Both of you. Were you followed?”

“Hardly. We didn’t see anyone else at all.”

Her face fell. “Damn. I thought maybe if you two had gotten through… never mind. Inside.”

The two men obeyed promptly. The second he stepped over the threshold of Georgie’s flat, Jon was hit with a wave of dizziness. “Whoa, easy.” Martin’s solid bulk behind him was, for a moment, the only thing keeping Jon upright. “You okay?”

“Yes, I-I think so.” Jon blinked at the change from the harsh light of the hallway to the dim flat, wondering if the shadows outside had invaded Georgie’s home as well, before she switched on a lamp and dispelled the darkness. “It’s just… been a long time since I felt… out of sight.”

“Heh. Yeah, I… yeah. D’you think—?”

“J-jon? _Jon?!_ ”

Jon looked up at the familiar voice but only caught a glimpse of Melanie’s astonished face before she turned into a blur and flew at him—not to hit him, as was his first wild thought, but to hug him so tightly that she pressed nearly every atom of oxygen out of his lungs. “Urk! H-hi, Melanie. I-it… hi.”

She buried her face in his shoulder and somehow tightened her grip around his torso.

“Babe, he’s still got to breathe,” said Georgie gently. “At least, I think he does…”

“Er, yeah, breathing is still very much required.”

Melanie pulled back with such obvious reluctance that Jon’s heart twisted. She had discarded the hospital bandages he had last seen her with, and the closed, flat eyelids tore at him, but for little while longer, at least, he hoped they could be friends.

She looked well, otherwise, as did Georgie. Pale from lack of sunlight and gaunt with the strain of not knowing what was happening, but free, in this place, of more acute personal terrors.

“Hi Melanie,” said Martin gently.

“Martin! Y-you’re here too? I—I didn’t realize…” She held out a hand and Martin took it, pulling her close and hugging her carefully.

“It’s… it’s really good to see you.”

“Oh god, you have no idea.”

“Mm, no, I have a bit of one. We’ve—”

“Oh my god, Martin, you’re—are you okay?”

“Uh, for most definitions of okay? …Mostly, yeah. Why?”

“I’m not sure, you…” Melanie reached up and curled her hands around his shoulders, then around his biceps, as though she was measuring him. “When I hugged Jon, he didn’t really feel any different. Just… maybe _more_ like himself? Which probably isn’t… good. But you feel… weirdly smaller, somehow? There’s a diminished quality about you. Like, there’s _more_ Jon, but—okay. You know how sometimes when a person walks into a room, the air in the room changes? You don’t have even a little of that anymore.”

“Personally, I beg to differ,” said Jon, mildly enough, but it put a very pleased grin on Martin’s face. “To be honest, I… wasn’t sure we’d be welcome.”

Georgie rolled her eyes. “Jon,” she said, in small words to make sure he understood, “you and Martin are the first people we’ve seen in… I don’t even know how long. Too long. Since the world ended, because apparently that happened. So unless you actually _ended the world_ , I think we can put the Magnus Institute bullshit aside and… oh no. Oh no, please don’t look at me like that.”

“I…”

“Martin,” Melanie asked, with a familiar edge of steel creeping into her voice, “did Jon end the world?”

Martin looked at Jon apologetically. “Y-yes? But it wasn’t—”

“Wasn’t his fault,” she finished. “Yeah. I figured you’d say that.”

“It wasn’t!”

“I believe you.” She punched his arm softly and then turned her head, not quite in Jon’s direction. “I believe you, too.”

“Melanie—”

“Georgie. Not the time. I do believe you, Jon, whatever that’s worth.”

“That’s… it’s worth a lot. Thank you. …I didn’t do it on purpose. But it _was_ my fault.”

“Look, can we not do this?” Martin pleaded. “We just went through a lot, _a lot_ , to track you down and make sure you and Georgie were safe. So can we just… sit? An-and talk? Please?”

Either his plaintive request or her own common sense finally made Georgie unstiffen. “Yeah… yeah, might as well. Have a seat, guys.”

Jon and Martin shed their backpacks and then they and Melanie huddled around the small round kitchen table while Georgie put the kettle on. The gas was still working, Jon noted, and the electricity and water as well.

“I didn’t mean to slobber all over you, but we… actually thought you were dead,” Melanie admitted. “We haven’t seen you since everything changed.”

“Seen—oh, in the dreams! Well, you wouldn’t.”

“I kind of figured I wouldn’t, after… quitting. But Georgie hasn’t, either, and—”

“No, I meant… I haven’t been having the dreams, either.”

“Oh! But that’s _good_ , isn’t it?”

“He’s not dreaming because he’s not sleeping,” Martin said. “Neither of us have slept, since the Change.”

“At _all_?”

Jon shrugged. “We haven’t needed to. And the last time Martin fell asleep, I couldn’t wake him for days. I thought…” Jon shuddered. Martin curled his hand around Jon’s fingers, and without thinking, Jon raised Martin’s hand to his lips.

“Oh!” said Georgie as she placed steaming mugs on the table before them, and folded Melanie’s hands around her own cup. “So you two are…?”

“Yes,” said Jon.

“About fucking time,” Melanie muttered, and raised her face for Georgie to kiss.

“Yes, well.”

Georgie watched as Martin gulped down half his tea without tasting it. “Before I sit down, are you guys hungry? Food’s not a problem, there’s plenty of shelf-stable stuff in the shops yet, and Melanie’s taught me a few things about breaking and entering. And since we’re the only ones eating it….”

“Yes,” said Martin, before Jon could open his mouth. “I have been waiting at a bus stop for eons and I am _ravenous_.”

“Yeah, me too, I’m… wow, hungry.” Jon’s stomach chose that moment to chime in. Loudly. “That hasn’t happened in a while.”

“I hope you don’t mind vegan food. There’s still meat in the shops, too, and it looks fresh, but… I don’t trust it.”

Martin recoiled in horror; Jon only nodded. “Probably wise.”

“Yeah, ve… vegan’s fine,” said Martin, weakly. “Thanks, Georgie.”

Jon looked around furtively while she assembled a meal. “Where’s the Admiral?” He regretted the question as soon as it was out of his mouth, because Melanie sighed and her hands clenched around her mug.

“Dunno,” was Georgie’s brief response. “He got out of the flat not long after the Change, and we haven’t seen him since.”

“Oh,” said Jon, very softly, and didn’t speak again until the food was on the table.

It felt strange to be eating again, to be putting food onto his fork and putting that food into his mouth, and tasting things like rice and onions and lentils and olive oil, with their warm comforting flavours and nourishing starches and proteins. What was the last thing he’d eaten? Something Martin had made, in Scotland… there had been rice in that, as well. It was something with cabbage and tomatoes, wasn’t it?

That had tasted exquisite. This tasted merely… like food. Was it because of who had prepared it? Or because of where it was being served? Jon didn’t know. Maybe it was simply that he wasn’t a creature that could really appreciate ‘food’ anymore.

Martin had attacked his place with an almost savage relish, but after the first few bites had blunted his hunger, he slowed down, and seemed almost disappointed at the meal. But he was far too polite to say anything of the kind to Georgie, just as he had been over Jon’s few disastrous attempts at taking over cooking duties.

“So now that you’re here,” said Georgie, to both of them, when their plates were nearly empty, “I assume you’re going to be staying for a while? I moved the old sofa-bed into the recording studio, so you’re welcome to that. It’s not like I’m using the equipment, at the moment. Or there’s literally every other flat in the building. I’ve looked in most of them and there’s definitely no people left.”

Jon looked up in surprise. “I… a-are you sure you want us here? After… I mean, I haven’t even explained yet—”

“Jon, you have an annoying habit of showing up on my doorstep hungry and bleeding and needing a place to hide. When have you _ever_ offered me an explanation upfront? And when have I ever demanded one?”

“…Okay, that’s fair. But I promise, Georgie, I don’t mean to intrude on your—”

“Martin, do you want the bed in the studio or do you want to try your luck in one of the abandoned flats?”

“We’ll take the studio,” said Martin firmly.

Jon looked back and forth between his ex-girlfriend and his current boyfriend. “Hey, wh—don’t I get a say?”

“No,” said Martin and Georgie. Melanie leaned back in her chair and laughed.

“…Right. I… thanks. But we can’t stay for very long, I don’t think. We’ve… got somewhere we need to be.” He shot a look at Martin and Martin promptly shut his mouth on the explanation he was about to offer. “Anyway, I don’t think we’ll be able to physically stay here for more than a few days.”

“Why not?”

“We will quite literally starve, Martin.” Jon set his fork down carefully. “Food of this kind won’t sustain us for very long, not anymore.”

“Ah.”

Georgie looked at Martin for a moment, and then traded a glance with Jon. “I’ll wash up and get the studio ready for you. Melanie can help me. Why don’t you two go get cleaned up? You look like you’ve been swimming in a bog for six weeks.”

“Something like that,” Martin said, with an attempt at a smile. He sighed and asked Jon if he wanted the first shower.

Jon leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Actually,” he murmured, “it’s big enough for two. If you like.”

* * *

“Are you _sure_ you want to do this?”

“For the sixth time, Martin, yes, I’m sure.”

“It’s just… we’ve never… I mean, we’ve barely seen each other completely naked, and I know you’re not comfortable with—I mean, you’ve got differing levels of comfort.”

“I do, yes. And I’m telling you, again—seventh time, now—that I am comfortable, with this and with you.” Jon stood up on his toes and kissed Martin, slowly and softly. “And if you don’t turn the water on and let me wash all this grime off, I may literally die.”

Martin couldn’t really argue with that. There were things on his skin and in his hair that he couldn’t name and didn’t really want to try to identify.

The hot water quickly filled the bathroom with steam, but Jon was there, and that helped tamp down the instinctive panic that rose in Martin’s throat at the sight of the growing white mist. “It’s okay,” Jon murmured, over and over again. “I see you, Martin. I’ve found you. It’s okay.”

The spray of the shower pounded on Martin’s back as he wrapped his arms around Jon and gave him back the same slow, soft, deliberate kiss. It had been so long since either of them had even been able to change clothes, let alone feel safe enough to strip off and wash, and never mind actually getting to _touch_ each other… “I’d almost forgotten what you felt like,” he murmured, letting his hands wander over Jon’s arms and shoulders.

And then he shivered. There was that word again. It was in his mind now.

When he opened his eyes, Jon was smiling up at him with fondness, adoration, exhaustion… and a hint of mischief. “I’ll gladly remind you, if you like.”

Martin nodded, and shivered even more in spite of the hot water, as Jon ran one soap-slicked hand over his chest and arms and down his back and legs, taking the time to massage muscles that were only now beginning to realize just how very tired they were. He scrupulously avoided what he referred to as ‘bathing suit areas,’ but Martin wasn’t sure if he could have handled being touched there, by Jon and right then. It had been so _damned long_ since Scotland and safety that even this simple act had him practically melting down the drain.

“Nice?” asked Jon when he had washed every inch of skin he could. “Feels good?” Martin opened his eyes to see Jon looking at him with anticipation and worry.

“Feels amazing,” Martin said, and pulled him flush to kiss him, to bite softly at his lips and jawline and throat. “You feel amazing.”

“Mmm… you too.”

“Right… my turn?”

“Yes, but… more kissing?”

Martin laughed and obliged him, wondering for the hundredth time how Jon could possibly think he wasn’t adorable.

When Jon finally let him go, Martin soaped his hands and moved slowly over every inch of skin that Jon permitted him. He lingered on Jon’s various scars with lips as well as fingers, and drank in every small hum and grunt and surprised moan that he drew out. Being so much taller than Jon, Martin had to kneel to wash his legs, and once he was level with Jon’s hips…

Well, he had to take a moment to steady himself. Jon was… beautiful, there was no other word for it. Battered and scarred and tormented inside and out, and beautiful, and Martin loved him. Carefully, he slid his hand a little ways up the inside of Jon’s thigh, not too high. “Can… is it okay if I touch you?”

Jon didn’t flinch, not quite, and the smile he gave Martin was just barely strained. “…If you must, yes. I don’t mind.”

‘If you must,’ not ‘if you like.’ A subtle distinction, but obvious, when you knew to look for it. Martin moved his hand away and pressed a gentle, reassuring kiss to the outside of Jon’s leg.

The tiniest of shudders passed through Jon’s body, and when Martin finished washing him and stood up, Jon leaned eagerly against him, limp and wet and warm. “Thanks. I… thanks.”

“Mm. Did it feel good?”

“It felt _glorious_.” And if Martin worried Jon was merely trying to make him feel better, the arms snaking around his waist and the face pressed to his sternum dispelled all his fears. He worked his fingers through the tangled mess of Jon’s hair, slowly teasing apart the strands of white and gray and black and smoothing them out, and massaging his scalp methodically.

“You sound like a very contented cat,” Martin smiled, loving how Jon’s hums of pleasure vibrated through his skin.

“I feel like one,” Jon murmured, “apart from the water.”

“Aren’t there cats that like water?”

“Mhmm. Turkish Vans. Beautiful little things, too, they’re…” Jon went off on a drowsy tangent about water-loving cats, and Martin happily let him talk. This was something Jon had learned, rather than something he was forced to Know, and he was glad to listen to Jon infodump about something innocuous. Something normal.

After a few minutes, though, Jon trailed off, and Martin lapsed into silent thought. The water drumming on his back was still hot (a small but definite silver lining to this being the only occupied unit in the building), and the steam in the bathroom was thicker and more opaque than was really appropriate for hot-water vapor. But that didn’t make any sense: he was warm and happy, he had Jon—

Or maybe he was just tired and imagining things.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

“What Melanie said… how I seem… smaller. Diminished. And then when I was passing through the Distortion, I keep seeing myself in the mirrors, and I looked… god, I looked _awful_ , Jon. Like a hollowed-out shell. And…” For a brief moment, Martin thought of repeating what Helen had said, that he was changing, that he was wande—

He shut down the thought the instant the word drifted through his consciousness. No.

“When I was waiting for you, I thought... no, I know I felt the Lonely, the fog, trying to creep in around me. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it so _clearly_ and distinctly. But I don’t understand, how can it get to me here? If this is Georgie’s ‘domain’ and it’s a dead zone for fear, how did it find me?”

Jon started to say something, but then he shook his head, sighing and pressing his face to Martin’s wet chest.

“...I brought it with me, didn’t I.”

“Yes. You... carry that fog, wherever you go.”

“So I’ll never be free of it...”

“I don’t know… I don’t think so. It’s not a mark that goes away on its own. And you were... well. Very susceptible, I’m afraid.”

Martin stared at the water dripping down Jon’s dark hair. “I chose the Lonely. Peter didn’t force me into that. Not like Elias did to you. ...But I’m still glad he’s dead, Jon.”

“You did choose it, yes. And then you rejected it, emphatically and repeatedly. That _matters_ , Martin.”

“Does it? Never seemed to work for you… and Daisy.”

“We were… we’re too far gone. But the Lonely, it—yes, you wanted it for a time, but it never made you feel good, it never… you chose it but you never accepted it.”

“But it’s still feeding me. That’s what you meant, when you told Georgie that we’d starve to death if we stayed here too long.”

“I…”

“Jon. Please just tell me.”

“I already did. We each have a domain out there, a place of fear that feeds us. The Archives are mine. I don’t know what yours is. It might be a domain of the Lonely… then again, it might not. I haven’t looked.”

“Why not?”

“Because you didn’t want to know. And because I’ll Know eventually, whether I want to or not.”

“Will… will we…”

“I’ll do my best to avoid it, but… we will very likely have to cross it, yes.”

In spite of the hot shower and the warm body pressed against him, Martin suddenly felt cold.

* * *

They didn’t actually have much in the way of pajamas or clothes to sleep in, but a couple of clean pairs of boxers was enough, and combined with clean sheets on the sofa bed, and the warm dark quiet of the sound-deadened bedroom that had served as Georgie’s recording studio…

It was sheer bliss.

“I just hope we remember how to share a bed,” Jon joked as they slid under the duvet. “Bit out of practice.”

“Nah… ‘s just like riding a bike.”

“…I never actually learned how to.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not! My grandmother wouldn’t ever hear of me getting a bicycle. Said I was too prone to wandering off as it was, so I never… Martin?” The sheets rustled as Jon raised himself up on one elbow. “Are you all right?”

Martin swallowed hard. “Yeah, just… wish I thought to get some water before we turned in. My mouth’s been… pretty dry, after all that time in the f-fog.”

“Oh, I’ll go and—”

“No! No, don’t.”

“It’s okay, Martin,” Jon murmured, his voice deep and soft against Martin’s damp hair. “I’m here. I found you, remember?”

“Heh. Yeah, you did.” Martin curled a hand around Jon’s hip. His fingers rested on the fabric of Jon’s boxers, but his thumb could stretch out and stroke an inch or so of soft, unblemished skin. “Did you… I didn’t ask before, but… was it difficult?”

It was some moments before Jon answered, long enough for Martin’s eyes to acclimate to the dark of the room. There were tiny points of phosphorescence dotted across the ceiling… glow-in-the-dark stickers, he realized, after a few seconds of frowning and squinting. Stars.

“I… was going the wrong way,” said Jon at last. “I couldn’t See you anywhere. I kept thinking I did, but the image was… wrong, somehow. Not faded or faint, but sort of… crumpled around the edges. I don’t know quite how to explain it. I tried to Know where you were and just… couldn’t. I was honestly starting to panic. And then I… heard you.”

“Heard me?”

“Yes. You were calling my name. And just for a few seconds, I saw you, standing in shadows and waving a tape recorder over your head and—calling my name. Just for few seconds, and then you were gone. But I’d seen you, and after that, I could _See_ you, and I Knew the rest of the way to find you. You weren’t far away at all but I was going in the wrong direction, and if I hadn’t looked up at just the right moment—” Jon stopped himself short, but he was breathing fast and Martin could feel his heart pounding fit to break against his ribcage. “But I did.”

“You found me,” Martin said, and Jon curled up close against him, driving away the panic that was doing its best to claw its way back up the inside of Martin’s chest. “That’s all that matters. We can talk more tomorrow.”

“Yes. There’s… there’s a lot to talk about, isn’t there? We haven’t even talked with Georgie and Melanie about what’s been happening, let alone that Annabelle practically—”

“Yes, Jon, I know, but not tonight, okay? This might be the last chance we get for some real peace and quiet so let’s… let’s just enjoy it, hmm?”

“Yes,” Jon whispered, after a second that felt oddly loaded to Martin. Jon’s hand – his unburned hand – was caressing his face, and it struck Martin abruptly that Jon had been very careful in recent days about _not_ touching him with the hand Jude Perry had mangled. And he wondered why that should be… and he wondered why he was only now noticing.

But Jon’s hand was on his face and in his hair and tracing his eyebrows and the shells of his ears and the outline of his mouth, and Martin stopped wondering and gave himself over to just being touched.

He felt Jon’s lips on his, softly at first, then with enough pressure to leave him dizzy. “J-jon? You, uh… you in a bit of a mood?” Jon replied with a low, wordless, affirmative rumble that went straight to Martin’s groin… but it didn’t feel quite… right. “You sure about this? You didn’t want me to touch you in the shower.”

“I know, and I’m… not really feeling… but this might be the last quiet moment we have together. And I wanted to try—”

_Oh._

Martin took a firm hold of Jon’s arms. “Don’t, Jon.”

Jon drew back sharply. “I-I’m… I’m sorry,” he stammered, stunned and wounded, as though he’d been physically struck. “I thought you… would want—”

“I _do_. Under different circumstances, I would, in a heartbeat. But you are so not in the right headspace for that. It just… feels… coercive? Like I’d be taking something you didn’t want to give, just because you thought it was something you had to do.”

“Oh!” Jon blinked rapidly. “That’s, I-I mean…” He drew in a ragged breath. “Sorry, that’s just… that’s literally the first time a partner’s ever said that to me and… and not meant it as an accusation.”

Something very tender tried to flutter in Martin’s chest. It didn’t quite succeed, but he felt it. “C’mere,” he murmured, coaxing Jon back to him. “Look, I know we didn’t have a lot of time to really discuss this in detail before everything went to hell, but we talked about enough and…” He brushed his lips softly over Jon’s cheek. “Don’t force yourself, Jon. Not for me.”

Jon buried his face in Martin’s neck. “You… you’re sure?”

“Positive. Please, just… hold me?”

“I can do that.”

“Then hold me, Jon. This is… this is everything I need.” Jon’s arms tightened around him. After a moment, Martin felt tears spilling onto his skin. “Hey, hey… it’s okay. It’s okay, I promise.”

“I know, it’s just…” Jon took a deep breath. “This isn’t what you wanted in a partner and—”

“Ssh.” He pressed a light kiss to Jon’s collarbone. “None of that. I wanted you. And I got you. You, _this_ you.” He shifted and moved his lips lower, over Jon’s heart. “The rest, it’s just… I dunno. Party favours.”

Jon snorted again, this time with repressed laughter. “Oh hell, now _that’s_ a mental image.” He nudged his head under Martin’s chin. “You’re… you’re sure you don’t mind? I mean, I know you don’t mind in general, but right now, specifically. This… you said it yourself, this might be the last, the only—”

“Please don’t do that. Last time, only time, end of the world, whatever. Don’t do this to yourself. I don’t care, you _know_ I don’t care.”

“Yes, I-I do know. But it’s… the reassurance is very nice. Thank you, Martin.”

Martin loosened his grip, just long enough to let Jon roll to one side and curl up in the circle of Martin’s arms, and then pulled him snug and close for a long goodnight kiss. “C’mon. Let’s see if we can remember how to sleep like normal people.”


	5. Illusions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two nights. That's all Jon and Martin get. And they're not exactly _restful_...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Glitchingicarus's art for Chapter 3!](https://glitchingicarus.tumblr.com/post/629833539326738432/jons-still-not-here-he-told-the-tape-recorder) I am in love with Martin petting this tape recorder. 
> 
> Warnings for body horror, eldritch first-aid (?), trypophobia, ommetaphobia, use of someone else’s prescription drugs.
> 
> Ohmygod this chapter is so LONG I’m so sorry.

Georgie was up like a shot when she heard the sound of someone emerging from the studio. “Jon?” she whispered through her barely opened bedroom door. “That you?” Her fingers were already curling around the handle of her knife.

“Yes. Sorry, I was just...” She heard a deep shuddering breath in the darkness of the flat. “Heading to the bathroom. I, I need some painkillers. And maybe a bandage or seven.”

“What happened?” Georgie slipped into the living room, leaving Melanie to clutch her pillow instead. “Are you okay? Is Martin okay?”

“Yes, he’s asleep, he’s just...” Jon husked out a shaky sort of laugh. “He’s very, very asleep right now. Normal sleep. It’s been a long time since either of us needed it.”

“So why do you need painkillers and bandages?”

“This far from the Eye’s influence, some, ah... some old wounds have opened up.”

“D’you need help?”

There was silence, and Georgie honestly expected him to say no. He was always stubborn about accepting help, and painfully shy of how much of himself he could ever physically expose. She’d seen him fully nude maybe twice during their years of dating, and one of those had been by accident. She could only assume that he’d been half-clothed while sharing a shower with Martin. So she wasn’t about to push the issue.

“Okay,” he said finally. “But it’s... it’s not easy to look at.”

She thought how she had helped to dress Melanie’s wounds after she’d ‘left the institute,’ but said nothing, just moved through the flat unaided by light (the blackout curtains were always drawn, day and night, now that city was all shadows), towards the bathroom.

Jon followed her, more gingerly. He closed the door behind them but blocked her hand when she reached for the light switch. “Jon,” she said peevishly, “it’s like two in the morning, or what passes for two in the morning, and I am tired. I can do a lot of things in the dark these days but cleaning and dressing your freaky battle scars isn’t—”

“It’s not the scars, Georgie,” said Jon hoarsely. “It’s the eyes.”

And he turned on the light.

She winced sharply as the florescent white brightness flooded the small tiled room, while Jon let out a barely suppressed groan of pain. Georgie looked at him and for a second or two, she thought her vision was still adjusting. She thought she was still trying to blink the exhaustion from her eyes. She thought maybe she was seeing double. But she just couldn’t be that lucky, because Jon couldn’t possibly be normal, not even in the most normal of circumstances. Which this was… not.

“Holy shit, Jon.”

“…Yeah.”

“You are…”

“Literally covered in eyes, yes. And—wow, this light is bright.”

Georgie reached over and twisted the dimmer knob. Every single eye on Jon’s exposed body – and they were _everywhere_ – fluttered closed for a moment in what Georgie realized was relief.

“That is… really fucking creepy.”

“That’s certainly one way of phrasing it,” said Jon, “yes.” His voice, his eyes – the real ones, the ones behind his glasses – his voice and posture, everything spoke of a bone-deep weariness. He was barely thirty years old, but he moved and sounded like an old man. An old, tired man. “Normally I can control it, I can hide them, but… we’re too far from the Eye’s influence here, Georgie. They’re all straining to See and they all _hurt_ , and they won’t close.”

“Bandages. Right.”

Thankfully, bandages were one thing that Georgie had an absurd supply of. Melanie hadn’t needed much medical attention, after the Change, so they were just taking up space in her linen cupboard. “How much help do you think you’ll need?” she asked, piling rolls of gauze and tape on the toilet seat.

“I, uh… mostly my arms, I think. Arms and chest. There are a few in… supremely awkward places, but I should probably do those first.” He tried to laugh. “I don’t think I’ll be able to bend over, once my upper body’s wrapped.”

Georgie nodded and turned away from Jon and the mirror, to give him a little privacy. She heard him slip out of his boxers and begin to wind the white gauze around his limbs.

* * *

Martin half-woke the second he felt Jon slip out of bed. “You okay?”

“Mhmm.” A knapsack zipped open, and fabric rustled as Jon slipped on a t-shirt. “Just need to use the toilet.” A dry pair of lips brushed over his forehead. “Go back to sleep, love.”

But Jon’s voice was strained, and after he’d eased out of the room, when Martin reached for his pillow, he found it drenched. In fact, Jon’s entire side of the bed was damp. Martin shook himself the rest of the way awake and switched on the lamp.

“At least it’s not blood,” he sighed, gingerly touching the soaked sheets. It didn’t smell like sweat, either, so he wasn’t sure… “Oh.” Martin pressed his palms to his eyes. “Shit. Shit shit shit…” He was half out of bed before he heard a low murmur of voices from the direction of the bathroom. Georgie.

A hot wave of jealousy crashed over Martin, warring with an equally strong and insidious chilly fog of humiliation. “Don’t be stupid,” he muttered. “He’s not… they’re not… it’s _Jon_ , he just didn’t want to worry me. He’s just trying to protect me.” His brain knew that; it was the rest of him that insisted on feeling shunned and neglected. “Practical, do something practical…”

He tiptoed into the hallway and found Georgie’s linen cupboard. Luckily there was another set of sheets that would fit the sofa-bed. There was a light on under the bathroom door, and Jon and Georgie were talking quietly. Martin could have heard them, if he’d moved closer… Instead, he went back into the studio and remade the bed with the clean, dry sheets.

When he crawled back under the duvet, the tape recorder from his knapsack was in his hand. He didn’t remember having grabbed it, let alone having pressed Record, but it was there and it was running. Apparently the Eye could still exert a _little_ influence into this muted corner of reality. Or maybe it was Jon’s influence. Or maybe, Martin just desperately needed someone to talk to, in the middle of the night, while his boyfriend was dealing with his ten hundred eyes.

Who even knew, anymore.

He curled more tightly against Jon’s pillow. “I’ve be… I think I’ve been holding back too much from Jon. About what Oliver told me… about what Annabelle said and what Helen… What the hell did she mean, I’m ‘wandering’? Or is it ‘Wandering’ with a capital W? Or is it…” He snorted. “Or maybe it’s just Helen being… Helen. She’s good at that.

“What about me, though… am I good at being me? I’ve been trying to help Jon to not blame himself, t-to remind him what it means to be human, but… I’m not even sure if _I_ know what it means, anymore. And that…

“I’m starting to wonder if I was wrong to reject the Lonely.”

The words were out of his mouth before he realized what he was saying, but he couldn’t take them back. They were on the tape. And moreover, they were true.

“Not because I wanted to stay there, because I _don’t_. What I want is… Jon. Heh. It always comes back to Jon… It’d be pretty pathetic if he wasn’t so determined to want me back. Never really thought that would happen. But then it did, and I still can’t believe it. He’s so… he’s so desperate to keep me safe, to protect me, and I get it, I do, but I don’t want to be protected. I don’t want him to hide things from me because he’s worried about how I’ll react or if I’ll be safe. I want to _help_. And… and maybe I could help better if I was as powerful as he is.

“I could have been, I think… but that wasn’t what Peter wanted me for. He didn’t want another avatar of the Lonely, he wanted me as some… weird hybrid half-aligned… thing. He was guiding my… development… for his own ends, the way Elias was guiding Jon. I didn’t seek out the power of the Lonely for myself. I wonder if… maybe… maybe I still can? It’s still in me, I’m still _marked_ … and I wonder if it makes a difference, asking for those powers and accepting them, instead of… of having them forced on you, without any real understanding what you’re getting yourself into.

“I should talk to Jon. Maybe.” He sighed, his fingers drifting over the STOP button. “Maybe. But not tonight.”

* * *

“Does Martin know about this? About all the eyes.”

“Hm? Oh, yes. This isn’t… entirely—ow, ow, too tight. This isn’t entirely new. When I… when the world changed… I changed, too. I learned how to control it, after a while, but it’s, it’s not… I can’t, right now.”

“How did he react? The first time?”

“Uh… not terribly? Mostly he was just worried about hugging me.”

“....That was seriously his first concern? Not that you’re covered in eyes, but how you were going to _snuggle_?”

“His first concern was actually to scream. A lot. But after that—apparently? He said he didn’t want to accidentally poke me in one of my ten hundred eyeballs.” A pause, while he tore and taped another length of gauze in place. “There aren’t actually ten hundred. At least, there weren’t at last count.”

“Jon. Snuggling?”

Jon sighed. “Martin is… very good at compartmentalizing. He’s—well. It’s an old coping mechanism for him. In some ways, he’s getting on better than I am.”

“In some ways.”

“Yes.” Another piece of tape. “Okay, my bottom half is pretty well mummified. Could you… oh fuck, I can’t get the damn boxers on. _Fuck._ ”

“Turn the lights off, Jon.”

“What?”

“I’ve gotten really good at doing things without looking. Girlfriend solidarity. Lights off.”

He flipped the switch and she moved closer, to give him a shoulder to lean on while he struggled back into his shorts. When the lights went back on, this time, all the eyes in the room blinked rapidly.

“Right. Arms?”

“Chest first,” Jon muttered, pulling off his t-shirt.

“Oh, wow. Jon, that is…”

“I know.”

“You’re nothing but skin and bones!”

“I would’ve said eyes and scar tissue, but they’re more or less the same, at this point.” Georgie pinned an end of a roll of gauze to a patch of eyeless skin with the tips of her fingers, and Jon shuddered. Or rather, every single visible eye shuddered, if such a thing was even possible.

“Are they all the same?” she asked, as she wrapped his torso. “The eyes, I mean. Same.. colour, same shape?”

“Honestly, Georgie, I haven’t looked that close. This is the first time I’ve been near a mirror in… well, in a very long time.”

“And you’re not looking in it now, I notice.”

“No. I’ve seen enough monsters in my travels. I don’t need to see another one. Especially not one as run-down as I am right now.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair and winced; Georgie opted not to ask if he’d snagged a knot or poked himself in yet another eye. “Christ, I’m tired.”

She finished bandaging shut all of the eyes on his chest and back, and then wrapped his neck, arms and hands in silence. There was, unfortunately, nothing she could do about the extra eyes on his face. Jon didn’t bother trying to struggle back into the t-shirt, just let Georgie give him a very careful hug, and then walked stiffly back to the studio with a glass of water and what was left of Melanie’s Vicodin. It had been a long time since painkillers had worked on Jon, but hopefully it would do something.

Georgie cleaned up the scraps of gauze and tape and turned off the light. Melanie rolled over onto her as soon as she was back in bed, but it was a very long time before Georgie could sleep.

She kept seeing eyes on the backs of her eyelids.

* * *

Jon saw the light on under the studio door, and as he quietly reentered, couldn’t quite bring himself to meet Martin’s gaze. The eyes on his face were still very open and very visible, although with the rest of his body effectively blindfolded, they were at least calmer than before. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

“I figured.”

“I brought you water?”

Martin huffed out a laugh. “Thanks.” He took the glass from Jon’s awkward grasp and then gently, deliberately, clasped his burned fingers. “Come back to bed.”

“Right, I just need to…” Jon fumbled with the pill bottle for a second or two, until Martin silently took it from him. He looked at the label for a moment without emotion, then twisted off the lid. “How many?”

“Let’s start with two and hope that they work.”

Martin handed him the pills. Jon swallowed them and climbed back into bed. Martin reached over to switch off the light, while Jon promptly glued himself to Martin’s side.

“Oh! You… changed the sheets.”

“Well, yeah, kind of had to. Your whole side of the bed was soaked with tears.” Martin touched Jon’s bandage-swathed body worriedly, and then with exquisite care, traced over the trembling lids scattered haphazardly over Jon’s cheeks and forehead. “Was it really that bad?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Jon. “I was… I don’t think we’re going to be able to stay here for very long.”

Martin nodded. “Should we leave in the morning?”

“Maybe. We’ll see how much sleep I get tonight.” He sighed bleakly. “I really hope this stuff works, under the circumstances. I wasn’t having much luck with sedatives, at the end.” As he shifted to better mold to Martin’s contours, his arm bumped the recorder hiding under the pillows. “Huh. Didn’t think they’d find us here.”

“Oh, they aren’t—well, that one didn’t. It followed me.”

“Hmm?”

“That’s the one I had at the bus stop and… I dunno. I’ve gotten used to talking to them. Kind of feels like… free-association journaling, almost? I usually ramble to whichever one shows up while you’re doing the, er… domain statements.”

“Huh.”

“I know, I know, it’s weird, but—”

“N-no, it’s not weird, exactly.” Jon shrugged, as much as the cocoon of bandages and tape would let him. “I… honestly, I assumed you’d be composing poetry while I’m reporting on the domains. It’s the only private time you really get, anymore.”

Something in Martin’s chest ached at that, like an old bruise being prodded. “No… I haven’t written much of anything since the Unknowing.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It wasn’t… I couldn’t focus, while you were in the hospital. And then after my mum died, and you didn’t… I wasn’t sure if I felt too much to get anything down on paper or if I was never going to feel anything that strongly ever again. So I just let it lapse.”

“I’m sorry, Martin.”

“Wasn’t your fault.”

“I know, but—”

“Jon.” He bumped their foreheads together. “Please stop apologizing for everything.”

“Sorr—okay.”

“Better,” Martin smiled, and curled around him protectively. With Jon there and safe, the Lonely feelings and the ache ought to dissipate. But if anything, the wounded feeling in his ribcage grew worse, and he shifted uncomfortably.

There was a light touch on his bare chest – Jon’s fingers. “Are you okay?”

“I’m… tired.”

“I know. I’m… I know. …Can I help?”

A sudden urge to snap (“No, Jon, you’ve done fucking _plenty_!”) took Martin entirely by surprise, with (“I don’t want your help, I want you to let me _help_ you!”) such force that he began to (“I’m so scared, Jon, please don’t leave me behind.”) shake.

“Martin?” asked Jon nervously. Then, “Ssh, Martin,” he soothed, pulling them closer together. “It’s okay. I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

Part of Martin wanted to push him away, to shove him out of bed and out of the room. Part of him wanted to sob because Jon was in pain and had just taken a double dose of fucking Vicodin in the hopes that his horrorshow of a body would calm down enough to let him sleep, and yet he was _still_ trying to take care of Martin. And part of him – most of him – clutched at Jon’s thin body, like a drowning man does a rope.

They stayed that way for a long time, Martin shaking violently but unable to cry, Jon stroking his hair and murmuring comforting nonsense and tangling their legs together to bring them as close as physically possible.

Slowly, glacially, Martin felt the crawling rage relent, felt the bone-deep soreness in his chest fade, and he let out a long, painful breath.

Jon’s lips were in his hair. “Back with me?”

“I… yeah, I think so.”

Jon said “Mm,” against Martin’s scalp, and it made him feel very warm and drowsy.

“Sorry. I know you want to sleep.”

Another “Mm,” and then, “‘m getting there.” He released his tight grip and slid back down into his usual place, with his head somewhere in the juncture of Martin’s neck and shoulder.

As he stretched out his limbs, which were now stiff from tension, Martin’s hand nudged the tape recorder. It had shifted from under the pillows and was now crammed precariously between the sofa’s back cushions. It was, he was grateful to discover, not recording.

The thought triggered a memory, and he asked, hesitantly, “Can I ask… kind of a random question?”

“By all means.”

“Back when we were in J… the Desolation domain…”

“Yes?”

“When I told you that story about my mum… did you… was that a statement? Like, did you pull that out of me? Because I heard the tape recorder click on… I’m pretty sure I did.”

“I don’t pretend to know why the Eye wants to record some things and not others,” Jon murmured, his nose and mouth still pressed against the side of Martin’s neck. “And it was… relevant.”

“It was fire-related, sure, but it wasn’t anything supernatural. Unless you count my granddad managing to get his old bones downstairs in three seconds.”

Jon smiled. “I didn’t compel it out of you, Martin. I think you just wanted to tell me. And you were tired enough where the words just… flowed. It’s… heh. It’s a very writerly attribute. Very poetic.”

“Okay, note to self: Jon on opiates increases his appreciation of poetry by at least fifty percent. This is important information! Jon? Jonnn?”

“Mm…”

Martin held him close. “G’night, Jon.”

* * *

The room was still quiet and dark when Martin floated back up towards consciousness, slowly and blissfully. He’d slept, a deep and dreamless sleep unlike any he could remember, and now he was awake. Jon was still solidly pressed against him, his arms still wrapped snugly around Martin’s waist. The only difference now was that there was a thin line of light under the door of the studio, and from the other room, the low sound of voices and the smell of something cooking.

It felt… nice. Normal.

He’d almost forgotten what ‘normal’ even felt like.

Unfortunately, ‘normal’ also involved tending to bodily functions, so reluctantly, Martin eased himself out of Jon’s grip and reached for his clothes.

A quick trip to the bathroom, some water on his face and a comb through his hair. Normal. Mundane. Everyday.

He found Georgie and Melanie in the kitchen and bid them good morning, and gladly accepted tea, eagerly anticipating the hot, sweet liquid on his tongue.

“How’d you sleep?” Melanie asked.

“Disgustingly well. That was the first really restful night’s sleep I’ve had since… heh. Since I started in the Archives.”

“Yeah,” she said, with more than a hint of wryness. “I know the feeling.”

Georgie brought him his tea and set a plate of toast in the center of the table, along with margarine, strawberry jam and peanut butter. “Is that homemade?” Martin asked. “The bread, I mean.”

“Yup. I’m not much of a baker but…” She shrugged. “It’s something to do. How’s Jon?”

“Still asleep. Thanks for helping him last night, by the way. I think the, uh… well, it helped. Thanks.”

“Mhmm.”

The three of them demolished the plate of toast in mostly companionable silence. With each passing moment, though, Martin felt a growing sense of unease. His skin felt oddly tight, as though it was shrinking against his muscles, trying to get away from… from what? The sound? There was a weird tapping sound ringing in his ears, and he wasn’t sure where it was coming from.

“Martin? Martin.” Georgie reached out and laid a hand firmly over his, and the tapping sound stopped. He had been drumming his fingers on the tabletop, and he hadn’t even noticed. “You okay?

The illusion of normalcy was shredded.

“I dunno, I’m just feeling really… antsy? Irritable? I’m not sure, I just need to _move_. This is the longest I’ve stayed in one spot since, since the Change, and… I’ve got the fidgets, I guess.” He drummed his fingers absently on the tabletop. “Think I might… go for a walk. Explore the building a bit. I-if you think it’s safe?”

“Sure.” Georgie shrugged. “I walked the whole place after everything went shadowy, called and shouted and banged on a bunch of doors. There’s no one left. You should be fine.”

“There’s a crowbar in the coat closet you can take with you,” Melanie added.

“Um… why?”

“Even if you don’t run into anyone – or anything – being armed is never a bad idea,” she said, with a grim sort of smile.

Martin nodded. And then said, hastily, “Right. Sure.”

He drank his tea, found the crowbar, and went out.

As soon as the door closed behind him, all the tension in his skin relaxed.

* * *

When Jon woke in the dark, Martin wasn’t there, and for a few of the longest seconds of his life, he was gripped with absolute panic. He couldn’t See, he didn’t know where Martin was, he didn’t know where _he_ was…

And then he heard Melanie and Georgie and saw the light under the door, and he could start to breathe again.

He braced himself and turned on the lamp, but there was no agony, only the normal brief stab of discomfort that came from going from darkness into light. He rose and carefully examined his body, both exposed and bandaged. Still all over eyes, including in places where there weren’t eyes the night before… but for the moment, there was no pain. And now at least they wouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.

Nevertheless, Jon decided to dress in long sleeves, and he was very relieved to find a pair of thin leather gloves, tucked into the side pocket of his knapsack.

He tidied up the sofa bed and put his and Martin’s dirty clothes to one side, and retrieved Martin’s tape recorder from the depths of the sofa cushions. For a few seconds, as he held it, Jon debated listening to the tape… but if Martin was using it as a private journal, then listening would be as much a betrayal of trust as Knowing something about him without his permission. Instead, he tucked it back into Martin’s bag.

Then he straightened the duvet again and fluffed up the pillows.

It was a delaying tactic and Jon knew it. The second he stepped out of the room, there would be eyes on him, eyes full of questions, and as much as he owed Georgie and Melanie a full explanation…

It was his fault, and no one understood that more than they did. But he couldn’t avoid it forever.

Jon took a deep breath and went into the kitchen. Georgie and Melanie were there, listening to books on CD while Georgie mixed batter for something, but Martin was absent, and Jon was… very relieved by that.

He declined the offer of breakfast and pulled up a chair. “I did promise you an explanation,” he said quietly, “and I’d like to get it over with, as we’ll probably be leaving tomorrow. Last night was… was rough.”

Georgie looked at him a long time, and then finally nodded. “Let me just get this in to bake.”

He told them everything. _Everything._ From the last time they had spoken to the confrontation with Elias in the Panopticon and Peter Lukas in the Lonely, to the cabin in Scotland, and the final statement that had ended it all.

It was all terrible, but it was also something of a relief to be able to just, well… vomit his horrors, to an audience who had already long since decided that he was a monster, but also a friend. He couldn’t hurt them anymore, no more than they could hurt him.

A stalemate. A dead zone.

“I hate to say it,” he said, as he finished, some hours later, “but I might owe Annabelle a thank-you.”

“It definitely sounds like it,” Melanie agreed. “As disturbing as that will definitely be.”

“And Martin’s just… stuck around? Through all of this?”

Jon smiled shyly, sadly. “I don’t quite understand it either,” he admitted. “But I’ve never understood what he saw in me in the first place, so…” He shrugged carefully. “I’m glad he’s with me, Georgie. I don’t quite know what I’d do, trying to traverse the domains and wastelands on my own.”

“He seems to have adjusted well. Kind of disturbingly well, actually.”

“Heh. You’re not the first person to say so.” Jon opted not to tell Georgie who the first person had been. “He’s struggled—he’s still struggling. But his mind is… very flexible.”

“Really? He always seemed kind of… tense. Like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, you know.”

“He wasn’t exactly in a good place when you first met him, but that’s… not completely inaccurate. He’s spent most of his life waiting for any number of shoes to drop.”

“So when shit hit the fan, he was… ready? You think he knew this was coming?”

“Not _this_ , but… he’s used to being prepared for things. Hell, he had bug-out bags ready and waiting for me to decide that we needed to leave the house in Scotland. So he hasn’t really needed to change much, in order to cope with… well, to cope. Which is probably why,” Jon sighed, “he’s having such a hard time accepting that I’ve changed so damned much. Because _overall_ , Martin is the same person he’s always been.”

The words tasted sour as they left Jon’s mouth. Overall, yes, he thought miserably. _For the moment. But for how much longer?_

Georgie looked at Jon’s bowed head. “You don’t sound like you think it’s a good thing.”

“That he hasn’t changed much? Honestly, I… I think that’s wonderful. I envy him, Georgie, I really do. I don’t know how long it’ll last for him, but… It’s his refusal to see that I’ve changed that worries me. He thinks that because I have these powers now, that we can fix all these horrible things, that we can do good and make things right again. He’s just so relentlessly positive all the time, and I can’t do anything – literally anything – to make him understand that I’m _part_ of all these horrible things, and that ignoring that isn’t going to help matters.”

“Don’t look at me, Jon. It’s not like I’ve got answers.”

“No, I know you don’t. I, I wasn’t expecting advice, I just… thanks.” He slumped in the worn kitchen chair and dropped his chin onto his folded arms. “For letting me vent. To something that’s not a tape recorder, I mean.”

“Or another monster.”

Jon snorted. “Helen thinks we’re ‘adorable,’ but she’s also on the side of me just embracing what I’ve become and… letting loose, I suppose.”

“I bet she’s all about the smiting,” said Melanie, knowingly.

“Ohhh yes. Martin’s the other side of the coin. He’s trying to help me retain my humanity. Or, well, he thinks he’s trying to.”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?” Melanie asked. “I mean, obviously you weren’t doing a great job of it before, but that was the general impression that I got. That you _didn’t_ want to become something inhuman.”

“I didn’t. I still wish this wasn’t… what I was. But I… did. And… this is what I am. It’s too late to stop it, even if it was something that could’ve been stopped, let alone reversed. And if I’m going to do what I can to make things right, however small that might be… I need to let go.” Jon looked up, and saw both women glaring at him with identical expressions of smug annoyance. “…You’re about to tell me to tell Martin all of this, aren’t you.”

Georgie reached over and ruffled his hair. “And you didn’t even need the spooky powers for that one.”

* * *

It was another hour or so before Martin came back, but when he did, it was with a literal apocalypse miracle wrapped up in his jumper.

“Where did you _find_ him?” Georgie demanded through her tears, as she, Melanie, and Jon all tried to cuddle the Admiral at the same time.

“Would you believe, locked in a flat on the top floor but one, on the other side of the building?”

“What were you even doing over there?” Jon asked.

“Oh…” Martin rolled his shoulders uncomfortably and ran a hand through his hair. “I was just… I needed to walk. A lot, apparently. Serves me right for trying to have a lie-in, I guess. So I just sort of prowled around the building all morning. Y’know, checking to see if there was anyone in the other flats. I know, Georgie, you did that at the beginning, but I figured, well, it’s a big building, and maybe people were scared and, like, hiding?”

“ _Did_ you find anyone?”

“No. Sorry. But I did find a bunch of non-perishable foods in those flats.” He nudged a large and very lumpy duffel bag with his foot. “Decided that, since the flats were basically abandoned and I had a crowbar – thanks for the suggestion, Melanie – I might as well see if there were any supplies I could bring back for you. As repayment for giving us a place to rest.” Martin smiled and reached out to stroke the very grimy cat. “And the Admiral was in one of those flats. No idea how he got stuck in there. Maybe when the Change happened, someone’s front door was open, and then when the Admiral got out, he just ran around the building and darted into this open door, and then it closed behind him.”

“He doesn’t seem too much the worse for wear…” Melanie’s nose wrinkled. “Even if he does stink.”

“Oh yeah. So did the flat. He was using it as his luxury litter box. But there were cat toys and lots of cat photos on the walls, and a whole big industrial-sized bag of cat food in the kitchen that he’d managed to tear open. So… yeah. Lonely and touch-starved, but not too badly off, otherwise.”

“Martin,” said Georgie, “if my hands weren’t full of cat right now, I would kiss you.”

Martin grinned a bit and was about to say something self-deprecating, when Jon stretched up and pulled him down for a very firm kiss.

“Wow, that’s a hell of a blush,” said Melanie, “I can actually feel the heat radiating off Martin’s face. Didn’t know you had it in you, Jon.”

“Oh yes… under the right circumstances,” Jon replied, smiling up at Martin with equal parts mischief and adoration.

Georgie was holding the Admiral out at arm’s length and eying him critically. “I am delighted to have you back,” she said, addressing the cat, “but you stink to high heaven.” And she promptly held him out to Jon. “Bath.”

“W-what?”

“He needs a bath.”

“Yes, I got that, but why me?!”

“Because this cat hasn’t had a bath outside of a pet spa since we broke up. I cannot. I refuse. If I try to put soap and water on him, he will eat my face.”

“Implying that he won’t eat _my_ face in retaliation for bathing him.”

“If he hasn’t by now, I don’t think it’s going to happen.”

“Fine, fine,” Jon sighed. “Martin, I think there are some surgical gloves in the bathroom. And would you mind helping me? I will absolutely need a second set of hands for this.” And he glared at the cat. “It’s a damned good thing you’re cute.”

The Admiral meowed plaintively at him.

* * *

Georgie was right: the Admiral did not attempt to eat Jon’s face. Or even scratch at him more than twice. But he made his displeasure at being forcibly wettened _very_ clearly, and as soon as he was released from his tormenting father, he shook himself in Jon’s general direction and ran into Georgie’s room to sulk.

“I love you too, you menace!” Jon called after him. Martin, who was putting band-aids on his scratches, pressed his lips together very hard to keep from laughing.

The rest of the day was spent doing… mostly nothing. Georgie hooked up her old Nintendo and she and Martin played endless rounds of Street Fighter, while Jon and Melanie ate popcorn and, once he was done sulking, played with the cat. Martin took another few jaunts around the building, but he stayed on Georgie’s floor and was careful to count the number of circuits, always returning after five laps. The final time, he returned to a spirited discussion about the legacy and impact of the hauntings at the Borley Rectory, which they all agreed had been an obvious hoax but argued as to what degree the investigators had been complicit.

After dinner, realizing that with Jon’s abilities muffled they could actually play a secrets-based game, they split into teams and played Cluedo. Georgie and Melanie ended up winning, but Martin was still _delighted_ that the murderer turned out to be Professor Plum, in the library, with the rope, because “the Professor Plum in this set looks like Elias, and wow, do I want to strangle him.”

“Should’ve let me kill him,” Melanie said, for the umpteenth time. But she grinned when she said it, and really, it’s not like she was wrong.

Jon pleaded exhaustion after the game. “I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night,” he explained, as they put the pieces away, “and we need to leave in the morning.”

“Are you sure you have to go? Maybe we could—”

“Georgie,” said Jon, gently but definitely, “we can’t stay. I’d love to, I really would, but… we can’t. _I_ can’t. We have… somewhere we need to be.”

* * *

Martin said he would join Jon in a little while, so Jon left the studio door slightly ajar while he prepared for bed, mostly to remind himself that Martin was still in the flat. He’d left so often that day, and each time the niggling fear in the back of Jon’s mind, that this would be the time that Martin walked out and simply vanished, grew stronger.

He finished changing and checking his bandages, while in the living room, the others talked quietly. Their conversation was a mystery to him, and that was a relief. He would miss that sensation of not knowing, when they returned to their quest. But if nothing else, leaving the dead zone would mean that he would regain control over his more monstrous form, and Jon couldn’t deny that he was looking forward to that, even if it meant… well. He didn’t like living like this… but he liked living. And he had a task to complete.

A sound of water from down the corridor. Someone was taking a shower. Jon went to the door to check on who was left in the living room and who was in the bathroom; if it was Martin in the shower, Jon would turn the light off and settle down.

But Martin was sitting on the sofa with Melanie, his face turned away from the studio, and as Jon glanced through the barely-open door, he heard Martin raise his voice.

“I’m sick of people blaming the end of the world on Jon. It’s not—it wasn’t his fault! He never wanted this!”

“Whether he wanted it or not, he chose this path.”

“He _chose_ not to die, not to become some... mouthpiece of destruction.”

“It was still his choice,” said Melanie firmly. “Look, I’m not saying he deserves full blame, I’m just... Jon taking responsibility for what he did, even for what he was compelled to do... it’s not a bad thing, Martin.”

“I... I guess? I just worry he’s going to get himself obliterated, trying to make it right. Trying to feel like less of a monster.”

“No offense, but I think that ship has sailed for all of us.”

“Heh. Probably.” There was a pause. “I’m really not one to talk. I was the one egged Jon to go full ‘Kill Bill’ on avatars of other powers. I... got kinda bloodthirsty. It was bad.”

“I don’t blame you a bit.”

“I mean it was bad for Jon. He did it a couple of times out of, I dunno, instinct? Pure hatred? But after that, it started to weigh on him. Like he was forcing himself to kill people like...”

“Jon’s a lot of things,” said Melanie, after a moment, “but he’s… I mean, he’s helped get people killed, definitely. But he’s not really a killer. That kind of direct action, it’s not _really_ his style.”

“No. Even if seeing him all powered up was pretty hot. Oh god, please don’t tell him I said that.”

A very rapid series of emotions promptly fell on Jon’s head, leaving him feeling vaguely dizzy and deeply unsettled. He quietly closed the door, turned off the light, and retreated to the sofa bed, curling into a tight ball.

He was still lying there in that position, thinking of how best to disclose that he’d overheard Martin’s conversation with Melanie, or even if he ought to, when Martin crept quietly into the bedroom. For a brief moment, a rectangle of light streamed into the room. Then he closed the door and the studio was plunged back into almost complete darkness, save for the small glow-in-the-dark stickers that Georgie had placed along the walls and ceilings, to simulate constellations. She’d always had them in her rooms, as long as Jon had known her, and he’d teased her about it mercilessly when they’d first been dating, as though he wasn’t horribly jealous that she had the exact same star stickers that he had begged his grandmother for and had always been refused, on the grounds that they would “ruin the wallpaper.” Georgie had always retorted with the comment that he was a goddamned adult and if he wanted constellation stickers in his bedroom, he should just shut up and get some. He’d never gotten around to it.

But he was glad she still had them; it meant that he could keep the blackout curtains over the windows drawn as tightly at night as they were during the day. And Martin could see a little of where he was going, enough to grope his way to his knapsack to find shorts to change into, to sleep in.

He was quiet. It was still something of a marvel to Jon to know that such a big man as Martin could move so silently, almost delicately, when he needed to. Only part of it was lingering effects of the Lonely; the rest was Martin, determined to creep quietly through the world and not make too much of a fuss… unless and until he had to fight. But Jon could always see the little remnants of fog clinging to Martin now, like scraps of smoke and shroud, and he doubted Martin would ever be truly free of its insidious influence, even if they could right the wrongs that Jonah had caused.

That Jon had caused.

He sighed at the thought, and the sound made Martin wince. “Sorry,” he murmured. “I was trying not to wake you.”

“You didn’t.”

It was Martin’s turn to sigh. “Jon, you need rest.”

“I was resting—I _am_ resting. I just wasn’t sleeping. It’s... hard to fall asleep, without you here.”

Martin inhaled sharply. “R-right.”

The warmth and disbelief and delight, all wrapped up in that one stuttered word, was overwhelming, and Jon clung to it. Then Martin slid under the covers and Jon clung to him instead, curling up against his ribs and hip like a barnacle. For a while, they lay like that, with Jon’s head on Martin’s shoulder and their limbs tangled securely, listening to one another's breathing.

“I... heard some of what you and Melanie were saying,” Jon ventured, sometime later. “I didn’t mean to, but the door was open and—”

“No, no, it’s—ugh.” Martin flushed very warm in Jon’s embrace. “H-how much did you hear?”

“Not much,” Jon fibbed. “Mostly the bit about how you wished people would stop blaming me for... well.”

“For everything?”

“For the end of the world, specifically, but yes, I suppose ‘everything’ does cover it, too.”

“Jon. It’s not—none of it was your fault! You didn’t want any of this, you—you didn’t mean for any of this to happen. And I don’t see how you can possibly ‘take responsibility’ for something you never wanted any part of!”

Jon closed his eyes against a rush of sudden and very tired tears. He burrowed closer and didn’t speak until he could do so with a reasonably level voice. “I didn’t want any of this,” he agreed softly. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. But my intentions or lack thereof have no bearing on my guilt, and the fact remains—”

“Jon, please—”

“The fact remains that I was the linchpin of all of Jonah Magnus’s plans, and I was the mouthpiece that opened the door to let the Dread Powers take over our world. That is a fact. That happened. And… I chose this, Martin. I never wanted to become what I am, and I didn’t know the specifics of what I was choosing, but I _did_ choose this. Not this end, not everything that’s happened, but _this_ , me, because I needed to _know_ , no matter the cost. The cost has been… far too high. And no amount of talk about intentions or what I did or did not mean to happen can absolve me of the part I played.”

“Jon, I...”

“Oh god, Martin, if you start crying too, I’m not going to be able to hold it together.”

“Right,” Martin said, managing a short, damp laugh. “Right, I’ll, I’ll just…”

“I’ve got you.” Jon shifted, oozing his way up onto Martin’s chest and laying there, like a living breathing blinking weighted blanket. “Do you remember what I told you at the start? About how the Eye can’t see itself?”

“Yes. That’s why you can’t See Elias.”

“That’s right. And I’m part of the Eye. An extension, if you will.”

“R-right, okay, that... makes sense. Yes.”

“Well,” said Jon, very gently, “you can’t hunt a monster that you don’t see. And if me admitting and acknowledging that I am as much responsible for this changed world as Jonah Magnus...”

“Oh... oh.”

“Yeah.”

They lapsed back into silence, but it felt much less comforting than before.

“Jon, would...” Martin took a deep breath. “Would it be better for you if I just... stayed here? With Georgie and Melanie? I think I’d be okay. I mean… I’d survive, cut off from… whatever’s feeding me. I’m pretty sure I would.”

“I...” Something in Jon’s chest turned inside-out. “Is that what you want?”

“I’m asking what _you_ want, Jon. If I’m just... If I’m holding you back.”

There was a long silence. “No,” said Jon finally. “No, that’s not what I want. Without you, I... there’s nothing to keep me from becoming just like any of the other avatars.”

“But I thought that’s what you wanted—”

“I don’t _want_ to be like them. I _need_ to be more like them, but I don’t want it, Martin. And without you, without my—my reason, to ground me, to remind me why I’m doing this in the first place... I think I’ll lose myself. I think I’ll lose myself very quickly.”

“...Jon? Don’t let go of me, please.”

“I won’t, Martin. I won’t ever.”


	6. Changing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Archivist and his companion leave the dead zone, and decide to start changing some rules.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Chapter 4 hugs art from glitchingicarus!!!](https://glitchingicarus.tumblr.com/post/630350840629166080/martin-y-youre-here-too-ii-didnt-realize) I really need to embed these images properly.
> 
> Chapter spans from Episode 174 to Episode 176. Content warnings for eyes, blood, threats of violence, eldritch first-aid, discussion of Catholicism, emotional abuse, homophobia.
> 
> Okay so Episode 180 watered my crops and cleared my skin (and apparently dead zones are canon now???).
> 
> As always, thank you so much to everyone who’s been able to comment and leave kudos so far. Feedback is love. ♥

At some point during the night, Jon abandoned any and all attempts at sleeping. It just wasn’t happening; the Vicodin helped with the pain from the eyestrain, at least, but the blissful hammer blow of total unconsciousness was nowhere to be found. So finally he gave up, deciding that any exhaustion he felt in the morning would probably dissipate once they exited the dead zone.

He hoped.

 _Might as well get these bandages off,_ he thought, and gingerly began to untangle himself from around his sleeping partner. Martin didn’t exactly wake, but as Jon eased away, he whimpered and reached out for him. “Ssh,” Jon whispered, stroking Martin’s hair softly, “I’m not leaving. I’ll be right back, I promise.” Martin made a noise of assent and relaxed back into his nest of pillows.

Getting out of bed, Jon began loosening and unwinding the cocoon of gauze and tape that had kept his many eyes shielded for the past day. As the limp bandages came off, all of them slightly damp from oozing tears, each eye snapped open, taking in every minute particle of light that remained in the warm, dark room, until he perceived everything in it clearly and distinctly—not as he would in daylight or lamplight, but as a cat saw in the dark, with the shapes outlined in gray.

He made the bandages into a rough ball and stuffed them under his knapsack, and then carefully inched his way back onto the mattress, not quite sure how the eyes would react to being laid on. Conscious control of them seemed impossible. They were _his_ , obviously, he could see out of them, and the information was being relayed to his brain somehow, but he couldn’t exactly narrow down what each individual eye was seeing, or close only one. They all seemed to blink at different times, as well.

But when he laid down, the pressure seemed to trigger a new autonomic response, as all the eyes beneath him, or pressed against Martin, closed their lids against the incoming obstruction. Which was a relief.

The eyes that were not covered by bodies or blankets, though, remained open, and though Jon couldn’t make out any colors, he could very easily see Martin. So instead of sleeping, he simply looked at Martin, for the rest of the night, cataloging his freckles, memorizing his small scars and various birthmarks, watching and committing to memory the precise way he breathed in his sleep.

The thought of eyes led him down a rabbit hole, and he thought of Martin’s eyes. They had been hazel, when they first met, an indeterminate shade somewhere between green and blue, and with little flecks of brown that sometimes caught the light at just the right angle and looked almost like gold. He remembered those moments, in hindsight, but once he really cared to look, he’d never seen the effect again. Now Martin’s eyes were a paler color, a washed gray-green that reminded Jon uncomfortably of a beach on an overcast day. Sadly, he wondered if they would ever return to normal.

That beach drew him inevitably back to that awful in the Lonely, and the house full of fog, and finally, grimly, to the looming threat of what was going to happen when they reached Martin’s domain. Jon Knew nothing about it, as yet, and he would continue doing his damnedest to Know nothing about it, regardless of what the Beholding kept urging him to do. But as they got closer, he was going to See it, whether he wanted to or not. And he did not want to.

With an effort, Jon dragged himself away from what was rapidly becoming a dangerous train of thought. Practical, focus on the practical. What was next for them? Before they had detoured away from their journey towards the Panopticon, the next domain after the Dark and the children had seemed to belong to the Vast, as far as Jon could tell at the time.

It would have been much easier, since Georgie and Melanie still seemed to be in London, to simply move on within what remained of London. Go straight to the Panopticon, and Elias. Jonah. Whatever awaited them. It would be horrible, regardless. But Jon knew – no. He _felt_ , he _sensed_ , that it wouldn’t work. He simply couldn’t just go to the Archives, not yet. He wasn’t done surveying all that the Eye could see, wasn’t through experiencing all the terror that he needed to have engraved onto his soul and chiseled into his bones.

He wasn’t yet ready for the Eye. Wasn’t done, wasn’t... finished.

Gently, Jon pressed his lips into Martin’s hair, and waited patiently for him to wake.

* * *

They didn't linger over their goodbyes to Georgie and Melanie that morning, which Martin was grateful for.

He was feeling… numb? Anxious? Ambivalent? Ambivalent was a good way to describe it. It had been so long since he’d been around people who weren’t Jon, and even though Georgie and Melanie hadn’t been exactly smothering, he was eager to leave. And feeling guilty about it. The goodbyes and take-cares, even the hugs felt… performative. Like he was acting in a play whose subtext he didn’t quite understand.

He didn’t want anything bad to happen to them, he just wanted to _leave_ , wanted to get away from people whose emotions and reactions he didn’t understand and couldn’t predict and respond accordingly to.

“D’you think we’ll see them again?” he asked, as they walked away from the building, more to hear Jon speak than out of any active worry.

“I don’t know, Martin. I just hope they’ll still be safe once we leave.”

“Hey.” Martin touched Jon's shoulder. “They’ll be okay. They will.”

“I hope so.”

“And, and look. The next time we see them, we’ll have fixed things.”

Jon’s eyes, the real ones, the brown ones behind his glasses, were bleak. He still looked so very tired. “You really still think we can fix things?”

“Yes. I do.” _I have to._ “At the, at the very least, when we come back this way, we’ll be able to tell them that Elias is very, very dead.”

“Yeah. Well, that’ll be nice.”

“Right. So… which way?”

Jon led them back to the bus stop where he had found Martin, and pointed towards a side road whose edges seemed to melt away into shadows. “That will take us back into the wastelands.”

“Great. And the next domain?”

“The Vast.”

“And who’s in charge there? Not what’s his name, guy with the lightning scar?”

“Harry Potter?”

“Damn it, Jon…”

Jon smirked. “Sorry. Couldn’t help myself. Anyway. No, not Michael Crew. Daisy saw to that.” His smile faded. “I don’t really know what happened to avatars, before. If they—if we could really completely die.”

“So… is he alive in that hellscape somewhere?”

“He’s there, somewhere… Alive… now that’s a question.”

* * *

As soon as they crossed out of the dead zone, Jon’s coat of eyes closed and retreated back beneath his skin. He stumbled against Martin and buried his single brief, sharp scream in the folds of Martin’s jacket.

They entered the domain of the Vast and they walked. And walked. And steered clear of the great beast that was made entirely of living human bodies. And walked.

It seemed to Jon that Martin covered the ground a little faster, a little more eagerly, when he learned that the avatar in command of this domain was Simon Fairchild.

“Martin. Wait.”

“Hmm? What’s wrong? This is a big place, Jon, we need to keep moving.”

“I know, and we will, but… You want to find Simon Fairchild.”

“Yes,” said Martin, with a deeply disturbing gleam in his eyes, “yes, I do.”

“You want me to smite him.”

“Um, _yeah_ , he’s a terrible old man who’s killed loads of people and who’s enjoyed it. He deserves to be turned inside out and terrified and obliterated.”

“…Right.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“I’m convinced he’s terrible. I haven’t forgotten everything he’s done. I just—this whole… avenging angel thing, I, I’m not—” Jon exhaled sharply in frustration. “It doesn’t feel right. I know. I, I, I _know_ , alright? But well… that’s kind of the problem. I-I have all this… power, and-and I want to use it to try to help, but I—” He stopped, and said, almost to himself, “I don’t know.” Then he shook his head, once, curtly. “I mean, I do. I-I’ve done so much damage, and – and anything that might help to balance that is—” Again he stopped, trying to keep himself calm, keep himself composed so that the words would come out sensibly and in the right order. “But killing other avatars is, is not—I, I don’t think it makes anything better. I think it just makes _me_ worse.”

“You’re _removing evil_ from the world,” Martin argued, though with less force than he might have, a day before.

“I’m not though, am I? The tenement fire is still burning. The mortal garden is growing wild. The carousel is still… spinning. It’s not fixing anything, it’s not making the world better. It’s just making _us feel_ better.”

“…That’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No. You literally just told me – last night! – that I needed to let you be more of a monster. How is killing other avatars not a monstrous thing to do?”

“Because _you_ don’t think it is! _You_ don’t think I’m a monster.”

“I’m sorry, I’m literally never going to think that.”

“And yet, you are still encouraging me to do monstrous things. There’s only so much metaphysical whiplash one skinny Archivist neck can take.”

Martin glowered at him for what felt like a very long, very accusing time. “Fine,” he sighed at last. “Fine, fine, okay, I… I may have been a _little_ overzealous. I guess. It just… it really felt like we were doing something. Sorry, like _you_ were doing something. Not like I can do anything useful like smiting… Okay. So what exactly do you want to do?”

“…What d’you mean?”

“When we do come across other avatars. I mean, obviously you have to do something. If it’s not me insisting you confront them, it’s the Eye, so…? Tell me you’ve at least considered a hint of an outline of a plan.”

“I… sort of?” Jon grimaced. “Annabelle… seemed to be suggesting that instead of killing the other avatars we encounter, I should try threatening them instead.”

“…Threatening them with _what_ , exactly?”

“The possibility of being Seen, I suppose. Of being known inside and out. Of being made afraid.”

“Okay, but… why? I mean, what’s the point of threatening someone if you don’t have a reason for it? I would personally much rather you obliterated Simon Fairchild than just put the fear of the Beholding into him—”

“Why? I’ve never even met Simon Fairchild.”

“I did,” said Martin darkly. “Once was enough.”

Jon stopped. He turned and regarded Martin intently, feeling a quiet rage beginning to build in his chest. “What did he _do_ to you?”

“He… he threatened me. For a joke.”

“…A joke.” Jon eyed him for a moment. “But he didn’t actually hurt you.”

“N… no. No, he didn’t.”

“Why do you sound annoyed?”

“If he’d actually hurt me, we wouldn’t be having this conversation!”

“No,” said Jon quietly. “We wouldn’t. And I would do to Simon Fairchild what I did to Peter Lukas.”

“I don’t…” Martin hesitated, and swallowed hard. Another boom in the distance. “I don’t really remember what you did to Peter. I wasn’t…”

“The memory is there, in your mind. If you wanted to remember, I could… help.” Jon stopped, opened his mouth, and then shook his head. “But that’s not really relevant right now. If all Simon did was threaten you a little, then he’s as good a person as any to use as a test subject.”

“Should we really be listening to Annabelle’s advice?”

“Probably not, but…” Jon lifted his hands, as though inspecting them for strings. “I can’t seem to escape being pulled along, whether I want to be or not. And there’s this… nagging suspicion in the back of my brain that I can’t seem to shake…”

“Suspicion of _what_?”

“That the Web would have preferred the world not to change. That the Mother of Puppets wouldn’t mind if things just… went back. And maybe…” Jon took a deep breath. “Maybe the Web knows how to do it.”

“Oh.” Martin looked at him with such a measuring gaze that Jon began to babble.

“Or—or I could not do that. I, I mean, go along with the Web’s obvious plans. You’re right, it’s a terrible idea, trying t-to play one Dread Power against the other like that and—”

“No. No, let’s give it a shot.”

“Oh!”

“Back in the Corpse Roots, Nathaniel Thorp said he was waiting for you to pick a game, so he could see what rules you would break. Right?”

“Right.”

“So let’s break some rules. Or at least change up the approach. I mean, yes, you’re a _terrible_ liar, but I think you’d be very good at blackmail—”

“Martin!”

“—and you’re as stubborn as a damned cockroach,” Martin continued, with fond unconcern. “So I guess let’s… try leaning into your strengths?”

“I…” Jon rubbed his eyes, utterly unable to decide if Martin was being a good influence on his monstrous nature or a bad influence on what was left of his human one. “It’s worth a shot?”

“Okay. So. How do we find Simon? Is he close?”

“Yes. But he’s able to move a lot faster than we are in this place.”

“Meaning…?”

“Meaning I know where he is, but… if he doesn’t want us to reach him, I don’t know if we’ll have much of a chance.”

“So, so, what, we’re just going to trust him to show up to his own execution—”

He was cut off by the man in question dropping out of the sky like a stone and slamming into the ground in front of them.

“Jesus!” shrieked Martin.

Jon let out a short laugh, all he could get out around his racing heart. “Uh... apparently!”

The short, impossibly ancient-looking man with his wisps of white hair and his eyes of clear sky blue smiled at them with delight. “Hello! Hello, dreadfully sorry!” He made a show of brushing the dust and rubble from his clothing. “I only just noticed you were both here! That’s the problem with having such a big place, you know! You can miss things if you’re not careful.”

“Right,” said Jon, blinking.

“Good to see you again, Martin! And you must be the famous Archivist. Herald of the Ceaseless Watcher, Harbinger of the New Age, et cetera. Lovely to meet you at last.” And he extended his hand to Jon, with perfect politeness. “Simon Fairchild, at your service.”

“I know who you are,” Jon said, ignoring the hand and looking directly into Simon’s smiling face. “In fact, I’ve heard quite a lot about you.”

“Have you? Oh my, well, that’s certainly flattering.”

“Right.”

Simon beamed up at Martin. “Been talking about me, have you?”

“Yeah,” said Martin shortly, “a bit. Mainly talking about all those lies you told me. You helped to do this. You turned the world into your—your playground.”

“Um, not to be a _pedant_ , but if you recall, I was actually doing a favor for Peter. And if Peter had won, none of this would have happened. Also, not to make excuses, but they weren’t exactly lies. Just – oversimplifications of complicated truths. And guesses.” Simon paused. “A lot of guesses.” He paused again. “Almost all guesses, really, now I come to think about it.”

“You also threatened me.”

“Did I? Hm, I suppose I did, a little. But I really ought to thank you for swinging by to my _huge_ corner of the apocalypse. We don’t get many visitors these days, and, well—you might be the closest thing the universe has ever had to an important person.”

“Mm. That so?”

“I mean, obviously you’re still ultimately finite and all that, but altering the very fabric of the universe, that’s…” Simon was plainly impressed. “That’s pretty good going, all things considered—”

**“Enough.”**

Simon rocked back a little on his heels, though it might have been from surprise as much as from the force of the compulsion. “I’m sorry?”

“Yes,” said Jon, his voice dropping and his eyes beginning to glow. “I am the Herald of the Ceaseless Watcher. I am also very tired, Simon, and very _annoyed_.”

“Oh? Well, that’s—”

“So I’m glad you decided to drop by. You see…” Jon smiled. His eyes didn’t. “You threatened my boyfriend. I’m here to return the favor.”

Simon returned the smile easily, but there was a tension coiling in his body, the readiness of an animal realizing that it’s being cornered. “Unfortunately, Archivist, I haven’t got a boyfriend for you to threaten.”

“Oh no, Simon, that’s not how this works. Would you like to know how the others died?” he asked lightly, keeping his gaze locked on this small old man who prided himself on being so aware of his own inexpressible unimportance. “Avatars of the Stranger, the Flesh, the Desolation. I could show you. How they ended, screaming in terror as they understood true fear for the first and last time. How you’re going to end.”

“No, thank you, I—hang on, can he do that?”

“He can,” said Martin, simply and brutally, “and he’s going to.”

“Seems a bit rude, to be honest,” Simon complained. “I haven’t done anything to you, and this is _my_ domain, after all.”

“And these are _my_ rules.” Jon felt the cold, inhuman hunger building within him. This went beyond a desire for unassuming human terror. This was more, this was sweet and sacrificial and better than simple destruction, and he clenched his fists as he lapped up every drop of fear pouring off of Simon. “You threatened someone I love. And since the only person you love is yourself, I think this is appropriate. Tell me, Simon…” Jon’s voice thundered around the three of them. “When’s the last time you were _really scared_ of falling?”

“You know what? I’ll, I’ll probably just be going, then—I, I, I’d prefer to keep existing, if it’s all the same to you, um—”

**“No.”**

Simon made it four inches into the air and then crashed back to the ground. When he looked up, Jon was looming over him, eyes wide and glowing and _Seeing_.

“What do you want from me, Archivist?” he demanded, his voice barely wavering. “Do you want me to beg for my life?”

“I want you to _remember_ this, Simon. I want you to remember that I can actually destroy you with a thought... and that I chose not to. I want you to remember, and be grateful.”

“Why?”

Jon’s verdigris eyes narrowed. “Someday, Simon, I might just tell you.” He stepped back. “Go.”

Simon Fairchild scrambled hastily to his feet. “Right, yes, I—it’s been lovely chatting to you! Good to see you guys. Feel free to pop by again when you’re feeling less, um, murder. Bye!”

* * *

Martin watched him zip off and then let out an explosive sigh. “I know I agreed to this, but I really wish you hadn’t let him go, Jon.”

“I know, I just...” Jon made a frustrated noise. “I didn’t want to kill him.”

“Why not? Because he was _nice_ to you? Because he was charming, because he was _fun_?”

“N-not exactly, I just... You are _far_ too disappointed that I didn’t kill that old man.” Jon and Martin turned simultaneously towards a yellow door, creaking open. Jon sighed. “Not now, Helen!”

“I can’t decide whether I’m disappointed or impressed,” she said, leaning in her doorway, her arms folded and her long sharp fingers slicing idly through the air at her sides. “I was really hoping for more murder but I have to say, Jon, you were deliciously menacing just now. Martin, wasn’t he just splendid?”

“I...”

“Martin,” warned Jon.

“...Yes. Yes he is.”

“Martin!”

“What? You can be very menacing, when you put your mind to it. It’s kind of...”

“Hot?” Helen suggested.

“Er, well. Y-yeah?”

“Oh for god’s sake,” Jon muttered.

“I just mean, confidence is a good look on you!”

“As long as it’s the confidence you enjoy and not the murders.”

“Oh come now, Archivist, does it _really_ count as murder, when there aren’t any consequences?”

“It has to. I need it to. I can’t let myself believe in the idea of no consequences. There’s always a price to pay, somewhere.”

“Ugh. Way to kill the mood. Honestly, I feel a bit cheated. The others were exceptional fun.”

Martin recoiled. “Wait, you were watching?”

“Of course. As much fun as the new world is, I am not about to miss a real, honest-to-godless demigod murder spree perpetrated by the most powerful person in the world!”

It wasn’t the first time she’d said that in Martin’s hearing. He remembered (he thought he remembered?) her saying something very similar during his last trip through her corridors, and it felt important, more than just the exaggeration and obfuscation of the Spiral. Important enough to get stuck in his memory like a sharp shell in the side of a sandcastle.

“But you obviously enjoyed terrifying that old man to within an inch of his life, so I suppose there’s hope for you yet. Supernatural blackmail’s better than nothing.”

“Enough, Helen,” said Jon sharply.

“Fine! Guess I’ll just leave then! Hang out inside myself until you get angry again and accidentally have some more fun.”

“It’s _not. Fun_.”

Helen laughed, and Martin felt a phantom trickle of warm liquid from his ears. “And here I thought you’d forgotten how to make jokes.”

Her door creaked closed.

“Martin?”

“Hmm?”

“How exactly did Simon threaten you?”

“…He said he’d throw me off a rollercoaster.”

Jon’s lips twitched. “Ah.”

“Jon?”

“Yes?”

“Did you enjoy scaring Simon?”

Jon swallowed. “Yes,” he said hoarsely. “I did. I-I… I really did.”

“And… are you okay?”

“…I don’t know.”

They walked on.

* * *

Martin rose from the couch and they walked away from the Extinction domain, a little slower than usual, at first.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, just… feeling a little stiff.”

“From the lovely couch?”

“Hmph. Brat.”

“Thank you. …Martin?”

“Hmm?”

“Did you—Can I ask something about your mother? I won’t, if you’d rather I didn’t.”

“No, it’s... it’s okay. I did mention her and... well, doesn’t do me any good to pretend she never existed, I guess.”

“Right. I, um. I just wondered, after what you said... did you grow up religious?”

Martin glanced sideways at him. “Uh… Yeah. Why?”

“I just wondered! Making conversation! Like, did you go to church as a kid? Go to Sunday School? My-my grandmother was sort of casually C of E, but she never subjected me to church. I don’t think she trusted me not to wander off during the sermon and climb up into the old choir loft.”

If Martin twitched a little at the word ‘wander,’ Jon didn’t seem to notice. “Lucky you. Mum was Catholic, like, _very_ Catholic, so when I was little, we did _everything_. Church every Sunday, religious instruction during the week, blessings before all the meals, no meat on Friday nights, oplatek on Christmas Eve, all of it. I mean, she and I and my granddad did; my dad didn’t. He wasn’t Catholic, but that’s the rule, to get married in a Catholic church, you’ve got to promise the kids’ll be raised Catholic.”

“So you’re technically Catholic as well.”

“Technically, yeah. I dunno. I mean, yeah, I was baptised, did First Communion, but... it never really did much for me? Especially after my granddad died. He, um.” Martin shoved back the filthy sleeve of his jacket and wiped his eyes on the soft wool of his jumper. “He made it all really, really warm, y’know? Really human, and personal. After he died... I still liked the stories but the actual devotional part...” He shrugged uncomfortably. “Wasn’t a good fit for me.”

“I understand,” said Jon softly. “He sounds like he was a wonderful man.”

“He was. He... oh god,” Martin laughed, though by now he had to stop and dig a scarf from his pack to wipe the tears from his face. “Okay, so remember when I told you I had a middle name?”

“You mean when you _lied_ to me about having a middle name?”

“It was only half a lie! Look, when you’re Catholic, and you’re sixteen or so, you’re supposed to make confirmation, y’know, make a pledge to the church as an adult. And you’re supposed to take a saint’s name.”

“Right.”

“I never did it. Didn’t feel right to make a promise I didn’t believe in, yadda yadda. Got into a _huge_ row with my mum over it, whatever. But. Granddad’s confirmation name was Kazimierz, and he used to tease me that since I was named after him, I should take the same saint's name when I made confirmation, but since I was so small, I should be Kazik instead.”

“Aaand I accused you of giving yourself a completely unrealistic name. Martin, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Martin gave his face a final swipe and shoved the scarf into his pocket. “I did make it up.”

“Yeah, but that’s different from—no. No, your name is whatever you need it to be.” Jon looked up at him. “You wanted something to remind you of your grandfather and I didn’t respect that.”

“You didn’t know. I never told you and I wouldn’t let you Know.”

“My... intentions don’t absolve me of the fact that I hurt you. I’m sorry.”

“It’s _okay_ ,” Martin said again. “Really. I mean, I’m pretty sure he’d have been disappointed in me for not actually making confirmation in the first place, so he’d probably be siding with you. I think he’d have liked you, y’know,” Martin added, smiling a little. “He liked anything that made me happy.”

“Oh,” said Jon, becoming flustered. “Oh, I, um. Thank you.”

“He—god. Totally leaving aside the whole end of the world? I’m actually really glad Mum died when she did. I would’ve had to tell her about you and... that wouldn’t have gone over well.”

“O-oh. You... well, I suppose I couldn’t blame her for not approving of me. I’m not exactly a prize.”

“Y—okay, shut up, you’re _amazing._ But she wouldn’t have approved of any guy I brought home.”

“Oh.” Then Jon inhaled sharply. “ _Oh._ ”

“Yeah. I told her about the occasional girlfriends, but never could bring myself to admit to the boyfriends, who were… slightly more frequent. It just would’ve made things between us worse. So… yeah, really glad she died before we figured our mess out. …Christ, I’m a horrible person.”

“You’re _not_. You did what you had to, to keep yourself safe. Protecting yourself isn’t a crime, Martin.”

* * *

The cut on Martin’s neck didn’t start bleeding until they were out of the Hunt domain.

“You’ve got three minutes,” said Basira shortly. “And I’m counting.”

“Sit down,” Jon ordered, all but wrenching his arm in dragging Martin to a convenient rock.

“Jon, it’s fine, it’s—”

“Streaming down your neck and into your shirt,” Jon finished. “Where’s the first aid stuff?”

“It’s in my bag, but—”

“No. No! Stop talking, you’re just making it open up faster.”

Martin shut up. He handed over his knapsack and sat on his hands while Jon searched for the swaps and bandages. He hoped they hadn’t all turned into snakes or something since leaving the cabin. Not like he’d actually _needed_ them before now… not for Jon, anyway. Nothing seemed to be able to hurt Jon. Everything wanted to and nothing could. Jon didn’t need protecting. Jon didn’t need helping.

Not like Martin, apparently.

“I can do it myself,” he snapped.

Jon glanced up in annoyance. “You can’t even see it,” he muttered, removing and setting aside a running tape recorder.

“Two minutes.”

Martin glared at Basira, who only glared back, unmoved. “Fine.”

Jon pulled out a roll of bandages, a sterile dressing, a handful of alcohol swabs… and a long, pale, soft strip of material that was emphatically neither gauze nor linen.

“Is that... skin?” Basira demanded.

Jon tore open the swabs and set to cleaning the cut Trevor Herbert had left on Martin’s throat. “Mhmm.”

“Human?”

“Yep.”

“Why _the fuck_ is there—”

“I don’t know, okay?” Martin all but shouted, and then winced sharply.

“Sorry… try and hold still…”

“It was… that’s what Oliver Banks blindfolded me with, in the Corpse Roots.”

“Oliver Banks. Avatar of the End.”

Martin growled an affirmative through gritted teeth. God, why did it hurt so much more when someone _else_ was cleaning a cut than when he did it himself?

“He wanted to talk to Martin,” Jon said, bandaging the cut as best he could with one good hand and one not-so-good hand. “But he didn’t want me watching.”

“…Is it bad that I agree with him?”

“But I definitely didn’t take it with me,” Martin insisted. “I don’t know how it got into my bag.”

“Right. You done?”

“Yes, all set.” Jon’s hand lingered on Martin’s neck, and as irritated as he was, that brief cool brush of Jon’s skin against his made the best moment of Martin’s day.

“Fine, let’s go. We’ve wasted enough time.”

Martin shouldered his knapsack. As they continued on, he stopped and scooped up the tape recorder and slipped it into his jacket pocket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Show dialogue used in this chapter is from Episode 174: The Great Beast.


	7. Saltwater

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Considerations of evolution and alignments. Martin is... changing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter spans from Episode 177 to Episode 179. Content warnings for disassociation, eldritch first-aid, emotional numbness(?), fear of uselessness/abandonment. 
> 
> This was... a very hard chapter to write. The trouble with writing an intense story like this is that no matter how much detail I think I'm putting in, it never feels like enough, because the story's in my head, y'know? It already makes sense to me. So it always feels like I'm not doing enough to justify the plot to the readers who (presumably) do not live in my head. And I'm always struggling with the idea that whatever I write isn't going to live up to the source material, especially in the case of an AU where the entire premise is, well, the opposite of the premise of the source material. So I'm trying very much to concentrate on writing the story I need right now, even if it’s not the same story the podcast is telling. 
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who’s been able to comment and leave kudos so far. Your feedback is keeping me going. ♥

**[tape clicks on]**

“Here’s your tea, Jon.”

“Thank you, Martin. I’ve… I’ve missed your tea.”

“Mm. Dunno what brand it is, exactly, but it’s… well, it’s warm.”

“Yes.”

“So… Now what?”

“I don’t know. We should… rest? I mean, we’ve got the time. We’re safe here, Elias can’t find us.”

“Yeah.”

Silence.

“Are you—Can you tell me how you’re feeling?”

“Glad we’re done with the Institute.”

“Heh… yes. Me too. But I, I meant more… how _you_ are feeling. You’ve been… distant. I mean, even since we’ve gotten away. I just… wondered if there’s anything I—”

“I... maybe. I feel... I dunno. Feelings are… strange. Not comfortable. I think…” A long pause. “I’m not sure I _do_ still feel things. I have memories of feeling things, I look at them and think, ‘Oh, okay, this is how I’m supposed to feel right now.’ But as to what I _am_ feeling, right this second… just—hot and cold, I guess. Like I’m still on that beach, lost and alone... and the waves are rushing in to fill the space in my chest where my heart used to be.”

“Oh, Martin, I’m… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry Peter took that from you.”

“He didn’t, though. Not really. He just showed me how. Gave me the tools. Everything I felt... I gave it away, all on my own.”

“For me.”

“Not _for_ you... to you, maybe. The idea of you. I wanted to keep you safe so badly… When the sea rushes in, for a few seconds, I feel… whole. Alone and blissfully, terribly content. But it always pulls back. It doesn’t… doesn’t satisfy. Doesn’t comfort. It’s not safe.”

“…Neither am I.”

“Feeling isn’t safe. Feeling anything. But it’s better than cold… and salt. Like having that space in your chest filled up of nothing but tears.”

“How can—” A painful pause. “Is there… Can… I would like to… to return what you’ve given me.”

“I don’t know if you can. Jon, I… I gave it all to you for a reason. And the space where my heart was. That’s yours now, too.”

“And if I fill it with nothing but tears?”

“Then fill it with tears. Just so long as they’re yours, and-and mine. Just… don’t pull back.”

“I won’t. I won’t ever.”

**[tape clicks off]**

* * *

The awful shrill muzak playing in the background crawled up Martin’s brainstem, reminding him of other chilly corridors and others care facilities. He needed to drown it out.

“Look, this is ridiculous, Basira. Can we please just talk?”

“No,” she said flatly.

“Why not?”

Jon sighed. “Martin…”

“No, Jon,” said Martin, just barely keeping his temper in check. “Enough is enough. It has been hours and not a bloody word! We have been slogging our way through literal nightmares to find you, Basira. There’s been p-plagues and wars and monsters and I— _we’ve_ been worried sick. It has been awful and the least that—”

“Can’t have been that bad.”

Martin almost stumbled on the squeaky-clean, cheerful tile floor. “I—what?”

“You look _fine_ to me.”

Under its gauze and dressing, the Hunter’s knife wound on his throat seethed with indignation. “Excuse me?”

“Basically whole and healthy with a shoulder to lean on every step of the way.”

“Basira…”

“Martin," said Jon softly, “leave it. Trust me. She’s been through a lot more than we have.”

“It’s not a competition! Christ! I just wanted to _talk_. That’s all.”

“No,” said Basira again. “I don’t have time, and _you_ don’t actually want to talk.”

“…Yes I do!”

“No, you don’t, and it’s really fucking obvious, so just stop. Stop trying to be polite or whatever and just—just shut up.”

“I… wasn’t,” Martin mumbled faintly, and wanted very much to be anywhere else.

“Look, you two cost me my only lead on Daisy. And I need to find her before she moves on. So unless you have something useful to say…”

“Daisy’s not here,” said Jon, wearily. “She’s already moved on.”

Basira rounded on him. “What?”

A strange and not entirely welcome relief flooded over Martin. “See, this is exactly the kind of thing that comes up when we talk—”

* * *

“Not interrupting anything, am I?”

Martin jumped nearly ten feet. “Christ, Helen, you scared the life out of me.”

“Sorry, darling,” said Helen, deeply insincere and smiling so widely, it practically dripped off the sides of her face.

Jon wished he could be surprised to see her. “I thought you said you were bored.”

“I am. Well, at least I was when I said that. Or I will be. It changes from one day to the next. But bored or not, I’ve still got a job to do, Archivist.” And then she turned to Basira and offered her a shortcut to Daisy.

That wasn’t surprising. Less surprising, and far more alarming, was that Basira seemed to be considering it.

“Basira,” Martin pointed out with a sigh, “we can’t go through Helen’s doors. We couldn’t come with you.”

“Basira is a strong, independent woman. She doesn’t need you two holding her hand. Anyway, it’ll be dead quick. Two minutes, door-to-door, quick shot to—”

“Wait a minute,” Jon interrupted, “what d’you mean _‘we’_ can’t go through Helen’s doors?”

“Oh,” said Helen, her smile shattering with delight, “you mean you didn’t tell him? Martin, keeping secrets from the Archivist—I’m so pleased!”

“Wh—look, he behaves himself with me.”

“Martin.” Martin was looking decidedly discomfited. “What’s going on?”

“Sooo there have been some... unexpected developments... which seem to have... diminished my options for modes of apocalyptic transportation.”

Jon stared at Martin, blinking. “I... what?”

“Honestly, Jon, I wish I knew.”

But he did know, Jon realized, even without Looking. It was written all over his pale face, his washed grey-green eyes, the faded freckles and the reddish-brown hair that seemed to have lost some of its warm hue since their departure from Georgie’s flat.

“Oh, Martin,” Helen crowed, “don’t be coy! You know exactly what’s going on! You’re _Becoming_! … Becoming what, I have no idea. Seems like there’s a lot bubbling under the surface there, but still, look at you! You’re just fine! Better than fine, flourishing! At least you’re not being as dour about it as your adorable boyfriend. _Love_ the matching throat scars, by the way. _Very_ cute.”

Martin’s eyes seemed to grow paler as he stared at her. “You really don’t care, do you?”

“Alright, be like that. Under new management, anyway. But I’m glad you’ve both decided to become the beautiful super-powered hell-monsters you were always meant to be.”

“I haven’t done _anything_ ,” said Martin, bitterly.

“Oh, I’m sorry, was that not you encouraging Jon to kill every avatar he came across? Was that a different Martin Blackwood who was playing Bad Cop, Worse Cop while Jon was terrifying five hundred years’ worth of life out of Simon Fairchild? Basira, you would have been _so_ proud of them. I’ve never seen one of the Vast so afraid—and that was all the Archivist had to do. Just… ask, ‘When’s the last time you were really afraid?’”

“Because none of you want to remember _that_ ,” Basira muttered.

“What about you, Helen?” Jon asked, very softly. “When’s the last time you were properly afraid?”

There was a sudden and decidedly wary gleam in Helen’s coloured-outside-the-lines eyes. “I don’t know, Archivist. Can’t quite recall, time being as slippery as it is. What about you? When’s the last time _you_ were afraid?”

Jon opened his mouth to retort… and then stopped, and laughed softly. “I think a better question is, when’s the last time I _wasn’t_ afraid. Because honestly, I… can’t really remember.”

“Really? In spite of all your powers? Now that is fascinating… the most powerful being in the world and you’re still terrified.”

“Maybe that’s why I’m the most powerful. Self-perpetuating avatar. I don’t really need anyone else’s fear… I generate more than enough on my own.” He couldn’t help a small, very wry, very unpleasant smile. “But that doesn’t mean you’re safe.”

Helen wasn’t afraid of him. Not quite. Not yet. Not enough to alter the balance of power irrevocably. Jon wasn’t even entirely sure if the Distortion counted as an avatar in its own right. It was entirely possible that the hand of the Spiral couldn’t be destroyed. But she was warier than she had been. And that was something.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Helen at last, with a questioning look that throbbed in Jon’s scarred shoulder. “So,” she continued, turning away, “what’s it going to be, Basira darling?”

Basira opted to stay, and they moved on. Martin felt Basira’s eyes on the back of his bandaged neck, and hunched over, wanting to shrink away from her gaze. Then he straightened up abruptly. _You don’t need to hide,_ he reminded himself. _You’re loved. You’re needed. You have a job to do, Martin Blackwood._

He wanted to take Jon’s hand, but Jon was already several paces in advance of them, Looking ahead.

* * *

Martin watched Jon disappear into the cupboard full of butchering tools. “I hope this one doesn’t take long,” he muttered, scratching at the gauze on his neck. The tape was beginning to itch.

“So long as I don’t have to listen to another one,” said Basira. “One of these place’s… statements… was more than enough.”

“Yeah, I try to avoid them, whenever I can. ‘S not always possible.”

“Why bother? I’d’ve thought you’d want to be glued to his side at all times.”

“Just because we’re dating doesn’t mean we’re same person. And listening to those statements _sucks_. You can’t move, you can’t interrupt, the whole statement just stays in your head no matter how hard you try to dislodge it—or did you not notice?”

“Honestly, I… didn’t try. I mean, it was awful, it was _horrible_ , but it was… it was kind of fascinating?”

Martin snorted. “Says you.” He tugged at the gauze again and winced when the tape tugged at the hair on his neck. “Might as well get this bandage off… the cut wasn’t that bad… I _was_ actually trying to talk to you, before. At Wonderland House.”

“You were forcing yourself,” said Basira again, with less vitriol this time. “And… look. I’m sorry I was so short with you. But it’s really obvious that you’re not comfortable anymore, around people who aren’t Jon.”

“I… guess? I—” Martin winced, and the tape pulled away from his skin. “Not the neatest job, Jon… I didn’t really want to be around people, while I was working for Peter. And then it was just me and Jon for weeks before the Change, and-and after. We managed to snag those couple of days with Georgie and Melanie that we told you about, but… I wasn’t really myself there. Wasn’t… didn’t feel right, being around them. I took a lot of walks… wandered— _explored_ the building. And…”

“And you’re changing.”

“I’m _not. Changing_ ,” he said immediately, sharply, and felt something shift in his chest. Something cold and stinging, that roared faintly in his ears. “I’m… I don’t know. J-Jon says… actually, no, never mind what Jon says.”

“Yeah.”

Martin finished unwinding the gauze and eased the dressing away from his throat. And stared at it.

Basira frowned, and looked… and her frown deepened. “…There’s no blood.”

“There’s… no blood.”

“There was definitely blood.”

“I know, it’s still on my shirt.” Martin gazed uncomprehendingly at the gauze and dressing. “No blood, but there’s a definite… stain.” Grimacing, he sniffed it. “That’s… oh, that’s not good.”

“…I’m absolutely going to regret asking this, but what does it smell like?”

“Salty. Like… tears.” _Or seawater,_ something in his gut supplied, unhelpfully.

“Martin. What Helen said… Are you even still human?”

“I… I don’t know, but… I think so. I think so. Heh, I actually think it’s Jon that’s keeping me human.” He looked at the bandages again and then gingerly touched his throat to feel the scar. It hurt, but only distantly.

“Humans don’t bleed saltwater.”

“Well, m-maybe in this place, they do! How’m I supposed to know? Jon’s the one with the all-seeing Beholding powers. God, if all of this had to happen, you’d think the rest of us could’ve gotten some, too.”

“Would you want them?”

“Sometimes,” Martin admitted, without thinking. “I, I mean, with everything that’s going on—wouldn’t you?”

“No. You think I want to be like Jon?”

“Or Daisy?”

Basira glared at him… and then looked away.

Martin sighed. “Basira, look. About Jon. He’s... he’s doing what he has to, okay? We’re doing what _we_ have to. And I, I know you find it hard when—” The door to the tool cupboard opened and the relief he felt at Jon’s reappearance was almost physically painful. “Done already?”

* * *

“Excuse me,” Martin said to the probably-inert queued body he had just bumped into. It was the appropriate thing to say when you bumped into someone and he was working very hard to remember the appropriate things to say at the appropriate moments.

Jon let out an exasperated noise. “Martin, they can’t hear you—”

“That’s not the point, Jon,” Martin snapped. And then felt awful. Jon didn’t deserve that, not from him. But he didn’t understand—it didn’t matter and Martin knew it didn’t matter, but he remembered that it was supposed to matter and _that was what mattered._

He didn’t want to forget how to behave around people. He was _choosing_ not to forget.

“Alright,” was all Jon said, and brushed his hand gently over Martin’s arm before leading them to Daisy’s next victim.

* * *

He clung to Jon’s hand as they left the processing line behind—clung to the burn-scarred hand, and ignored Jon’s glances of surprise. Not hard; there wasn’t a lot of flesh on that hand to cushion the pressure, but Martin hung on and would not let go.

“I need a minute,” Basira growled, and stalked on ahead of them in the direction Jon indicated.

They watched her put some distance between herself and them. Not much, enough to see, but not enough to hear. Once she was out of earshot, Jon let out a sigh. “You can ask about… about Daisy, if you want to.”

“I don’t. I’m not going to force you to talk about it.”

“I’m offering.”

“It’s okay, Jon.” But it wasn’t okay, and it would never be okay, and so many things would never be okay, no matter what happened in the future. If they had a future at all. “‘No one gets what they deserve in this place,’ you said.”

“Yes.”

“Not even you.”

“I certainly never deserved to end up with someone like you,” Jon said, with a warm smile that almost distracted Martin from how obviously he did not want to be talking about this.

“You told Basira that all we get in this place is what hurts us the most.”

“I did, yes.”

“…Am I hurting you?”

The Archivist let out a deep sigh. “Love is painful, Martin. It’s the most painful thing in the world.”

“Jon.”

“Yes… being with you hurts. A lot.”

That cold, bitter wave washed through him again. “I’m… I’m sorry.”

“I’m not. Some kinds of pain… they feel… good.”

“First I’m your reason for going on, now I’m the thing that hurts you the most. I… don’t know if I like that.”

“Aren’t I the same for you?” Jon reached back with his left hand and Martin took it.

“No. Reason, yes, pain… I knew what I was getting myself into with you.”

“So did I.” Jon stopped dead in his tracks but didn’t turn around. “Martin… I can’t see the future, you know that. And… I’m not a hero. That’s not, that’s never been the role I was fashioned for.”

“Jon, please, don’t.” _Please,_ Martin thought desperately, _leave me this one delusion. Let me keep on believing that we’re going to make it out of this okay._

“I only wanted to say… you’re worth it. All the pain, all the fear… Even if we can’t change anything… I’m glad you’re with me.”

This time, when the icy-cold tide rushed into Martin’s chest, it nearly knocked him over.

_He’s not going to make it out okay. He’s not going to survive. Even if we **can** change it, change everything, he’s going to leave me… Don’t leave me behind, Jon, I’m so **tired** of people leaving me behind, I can’t do it again… No. No, I can. I have to. I found my own way out of the Lonely once. I can do it again, if I have to. …But I don’t want to. God, I don’t **want** to._

“I can’t imagine being trapped in a post-apocalyptic wasteland with anyone else,” he said, forcing a smile onto his face and then into his eyes, and hoping it was bright enough to block out the pain.

* * *

Basira frowned sideways at Jon. “So they’re... what. On our side?”

“In a manner of speaking.” Jon wasn’t entirely sure why Martin had insisted on a rest but he had his suspicions. Basira was staying very close, after all, and Martin wasn’t actually _resting_ , he was walking laps around the desolate remains of park where they had stopped. But Jon was grateful for a chance to talk with Basira about something other than Daisy. They’d made an attempt at friendship once, in another life, and a fresh perspective was a rare thing in this place. Martin, understandably, wasn’t keen on this topic. “They’re on the side of retconning the apocalypse. We... I... just happen to be something that might actually accomplish that. Apparently.”

“Why. This is what they wanted.”

“It’s... actually not. This, specifically—” Jon gestured vaguely towards everything. “—is what Jonah Magnus wanted. It happens to suit the Eye. Not so much the other Dread Powers. The End claims indifference, but it’s worried, and justifiably, I think, that the Beholding will just… do away with death entirely.”

Basira blinked. “Can it do that?”

“Yes,” said Jon, quietly. “And if that happens, if people stop being afraid of dying because there’s literally not even the possibility of death, the End will simply... stop. It will cease to exist, as one of the Entities.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“I don’t know for certain if we can banish the Entities, but even if we can… You can’t destroy fear, Basira. It’s—being afraid, that’s...” Jon made a noise that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Part of being human.”

“You’re still afraid and you’re not human.”

“I am afraid all the time. And that’s the one of the only things that still gives me hope.”

“...What about the others. The other powers that want to reverse things.”

“The Web. It just doesn’t want to be under the power of the Eye. Simple as that.”

“It’s the Web, it _can’t_ be as simple as that.”

“Well, okay, no, you’re right, it’s definitely not that simple. But that’s the only reason I’ve been able to See, and it... it feels true. It feels like something the Web would want. I’m pretty sure the Stranger feels the same way, but not strongly enough to want to come to me for help. And then there’s... the Spiral.”

Both of them instinctively looked up, down, sideways and backwards, but neither Helen nor any of her doors were to be found.

“You really think the Spiral wants to turn the world back? After what we saw at Wonderland House? All that chaos and lying and deceit?” Basira drummed her fingers on her bent knee. “Seems perfect.”

“Oh yes, there’s plenty of chaos and deceit, and plenty of terror in that deceit. The problem is, or is going to be, that after a while, nobody’s going to be fighting back. And that’s... boring. Or it’s going to get boring.”

“Boring,” repeated Basira flatly.

“I... yeah?” Jon scrubbed a hand through his hair, searching for words to express the inexpressible. Not for the first time, he wished he could simply inject what he was thinking and feeling into someone else’s brain and be done with it. He wouldn’t, he would _never_ (wouldn’t he?), but god, it was tempting to try sometimes. “I mean, how long can you keep people in a state of perpetual terror before they can’t feel anything anymore? Yes, the Powers are vast and terrible and beyond all mortal comprehension, and they’ve clearly altered many of the basic functions of human bodies. People don’t need food or sleep, all they do now is feel fear. But there is still... doubt. And the Spiral is worried that this constant stimulation of fear is sort of going to... kill the mood, so to speak?”

“So the Eye can’t just… repair those fear receptors indefinitely?”

“I doubt it. Nothing’s indefinite. Not really. Everything breaks, eventually. Even humans, resilient as they are, can’t—have a good walk, Martin?”

“Yeah, not so bad. Nothing too gruesome here.” Martin hesitated. “You two… doing okay?”

Jon smiled. “We’re fine. You can go around once more, if you like. After that, though, we need to get going.”

“I… okay, yeah. Just once more.”

Basira kept silent until Martin was out of sight. “What you said to me, at Wonderland House. About Daisy, about not being able to hunt a monster I can’t see. You know Martin’s doing the same thing, right?”

Jon let out a sigh. “About me? Or about himself?”

“About you.”

“Yes, I know. I’ve tried talking to him about it, tried to make him understand... and I think he does, on an... academic level. He’s less insistent about it, than he was before. But it... it still hasn’t really clicked for him, yet. It doesn’t help that he’s already more changed than he realizes.”

“By the Lonely. That’s what Helen meant. And—he was bleeding saltwater, Jon.”

“I don’t think even Helen knew what Helen meant. But yes, by the Lonely. In part. It’s still got a hold on him. And the Eye’s never going to let him go. And he realizes it, obviously, but… I’m worried.” Jon turned the tape recorder over and over in his hands. He wasn’t sure when in the conversation it had shown up, and he’d long since stopped questioning it. “We’re getting near his domain. The one that... feeds him. I’m trying to avoid taking us there but I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be able to. I don’t—he... I’m scared, Basira.”

“You don’t think he can handle it.”

“I’m scared that when he sees what’s been feeding him, he’ll ask of me what Daisy asked of you.”

* * *

“You’re bleeding through the bandage.”

“It’s fine.”

“No, no it’s not. C’mere.”

Jon sighed and let himself be waylaid. Martin sat him down against a huge chunk of concrete and rebar that had once been a wall, and opened his knapsack. “How’s it feel?”

“The bone’s knitted solid. The rest of it… it hurts, but… not as much. …She was my friend, Martin.”

“She was, once. Then she wasn’t.”

“Yes…” Jon sighed again. “Yes.”

Martin groped unsteadily through the clothes and assorted oddments in his bag. As he pulled out the first-aid kit, he realized his hands were shaking. He focused hard on keeping them steady as he cleaned and rebandaged Jon’s leg more neatly, and tried to focus his thoughts as well. Tried to push through what he was and was not feeling (mostly was not) and make any kind of sense of them.

But for the most part, there was nothing to examine, because there was almost nothing to feel. He had felt other things once, hadn’t he? He had… he _had_ cared about people who weren’t himself and Jon. He knew he had. But it felt very… academic. He didn’t like this new world, he wanted the old one back, wanted all the people who were suffering to go back to how they had been, for everyone to be safe. He did. He _did_.

He was sorry for what Basira had needed to do, but it wasn’t Daisy, not anymore. Daisy wouldn’t have asked Basira to join the Hunt. Daisy, who had thrown away her last chance to be human to save Jon. That thing that used to be Daisy had nearly taken Jon’s leg off. And, Martin realized, tasting bitter saltwater in the corners of his mouth, there was nothing he could have done.

He might not be making things harder for Jon, but he also wasn’t helping him. Wasn’t able to help him. And he was so very tired of not being able to help.

Martin closed his bag with a definitive zip. “Jon. You said you didn’t know what my domain is like. That you hadn’t Looked.”

“I haven’t.”

“...I want you to Look now. I want to go there.”

Jon was silent for a few seconds. “Are you sure?” It wasn’t a question so much as it was a pronouncement, somehow.

“Yes.”

“…Can you tell me why?”

“I need to—” No, not know, not see it. This wasn’t for the Eye’s pleasure. “I just need to.”

“Okay.” Jon went quiet again, as he Looked. And Martin watched as his exhausted face became even more ashen. “We’ll... have to make a slight detour.”

“Doesn’t matter. What's a few extra hundred miles in a place like this?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Show dialogue used in this chapter is from:  
> • MAG 177: Wonderland  
> • MAG 178: The Processing Line


	8. The Body Farm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the way to Martin's mysterious domain, he and Jon make the acquaintance of another avatar of the End, and learn that defying the Eye comes with certain consequences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for eldritch first aid, blood, corpses, Lonely dissociation. 
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who’s been able to comment and leave kudos so far. Your feedback is keeping me going. ♥

The ‘slight detour’ involved taking a hard right away from the furnace where Daisy had died and where Basira lingered, waiting for them to leave. At least, Martin thought that’s what Jon was doing; it was hard for him to tell. The Panopticon towered before them, always in front of them, even when, as now, they were trying to walk away from it.

“So, if direction still existed, which direction are we actually going in?”

“Roughly southwest. Towards the coast, or where the coast used to be. Not that the compass in your bag would show it.”

“Which is why I haven’t mentioned it,” said Martin, forcing himself to sound chipper. “Okay, so... just a little sightseeing trip before we take care of Elias. Nice and easy.”

* * *

Jon whimpered as Martin rolled up his trouser leg to check the bite injury. “Christ, this looks worse that it did before. How does it feel?”

“Bad,” said Jon, breathing in short shallow gasps. “I think it-it’s because we’re not going in the direction the Eye wants us to go. We’re not moving towards the Eye’s center of power.”

“You mean it’s punishing you.” Martin stared at the angry, ragged flesh. “Should we turn back?”

“Martin, you asked me to do this and—”

“I know, I know, but... look, I don’t want to be the reason that you’re in _extra_ pain, okay?”

“If you want to turn back, then we will, but... I can’t make that decision for you, Martin.”

Martin held Jon’s calf in one hand and swabbed the oozing blood and pus with the other, concentrating on the task in front of him and not the panic rising in his throat. “Does the Eye even _want_ me to see my domain?”

“N... no,” Jon admitted. “It... really, really doesn’t. At least, it doesn’t want _me_ to see it. I feel like I’m forcing my way towards it, the way I would have to fight to listen to tapes it didn’t want me to hear. And I think you’re included in that... disinclination. It... it doesn’t want to let you go.”

“Let me... where does it think I’m going to go? It _won_. We all belong to the Beholding now.”

“Sorry... the whole scope of human knowledge definitely doesn’t include understanding how the Entities think, if they even think at all. I’m doing my best to make sense of it all, but it’s... it’s mostly guesswork, even now.”

“Except for your leg.”

“Uh, no, that’s not guesswork. It’s not going to really heal until we turn around. Not even with statements.”

“Yeah,” Martin sighed, “I’ve noticed. I mean, we’ve gone through, what, five domains since we left the furnace? Six? And you’ve seemed pretty spry after those.”

“Yes, for a little while. But it doesn’t last.”

“No, it doesn’t.” With gentle, expert fingers, Martin rewrapped Jon’s leg. “And I am running out of bandages. Is there _anything_ we can do to make this easier on you, short of turning around?”

“I... honestly, Martin, I don’t know. I’m open to suggestions.”

“I mean... I could carry you?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Jon. Please. You are in actual physical pain that I can very plainly see, so this is not the time for stubbornness. Look, you’re not that heavy and it’s not like I can get tired so... I can, uh, sling my bag around and wear it on my chest or something so you can climb up on my back. Or my shoulders!”

“ _No_ , Martin.”

“C’mon, just think of it as a—as a post-apocalypse piggyback ride.”

“I am _not_ letting you carry me,” Jon growled, though he wasn’t angry at Martin and that much was obvious. “I refuse to be even more of a burden.”

“You’re not...” Martin sighed. “Okay. Okay, fine, let’s just... keep going, then.”

* * *

The sky overhead was a brilliant blue, with occasional drifting white clouds. The air was hot and shimmered in the distance of the dirt road they walked along. On one side of the track was a field of young corn plants, green and rustling and as yet, barely waist-high. On the other side was a broad and lazy river. Body after bloated body floated gently with the current.

“All things considered,” said Martin, focusing on the cornfield, “it’s... not as bad as it could be. I guess. What’s this one called?”

“The Body Farm. It’s a domain of the End. Try, er...” Jon gulped in air through his mouth. “Try to not to breathe too deeply.”

“Noted. I thought a body farm was a sort of research facility for decomposition processes.”

“That’s what it meant before. This place is... well, it’s literally a farm.”

“For growing bodies?”

“For growing things from bodies.”

“Jon, this— _this_ isn’t my domain, is it? Oh god, please tell me it’s not.”

“It’s not,” said Jon, with a ghost of a smile, and turned into the field.

“You’re sure?” Martin asked, following close behind.

“Oh, quite sure.”

“And... you’re sure it’s not a Flesh domain? Because...” Martin took another squelching step. “The fertilizer on this field seems to be made of... meat.”

“Unfortunately, it _is_ meat. But no, this place belong to the End.”

“Ugh. Right. And who’s in charge?”

In response, Jon pointed over the tops of the immature green shoots, to the figure of a tall, thin man wearing an old-fashion, wide-brimmed straw hat, working among the rows of corn. At the motion, the man straightened up, and to Martin’s surprise, waved back politely in response. And then just stood there, watching them.

“What’s he doing?”

“Waiting.”

“I mean, obviously, but—”

“He knows who we are,” Jon explained. “Everyone knows who we are. But he’s got no quarrel with us. People die in terror of what will happen to their mortal remains regardless of whether the Eye rules or not.”

“Then what’s he waiting for?”

“To see what we’ll do.”

“Are you going to take this domain’s statement?”

“It’s not the domain’s statement that the Beholding seems to want.” Jon nodded at the man, and raised a hand to beckon him over.

The Body Farm’s ruler laid down his hoe and strolled over, hands in his trouser pockets. “Mornin’,” he said, with a friendly enough grin. “Didn’t expect you two to pass by my place.” He had an American accent, but not one that Martin could place, and the shadow from the hat’s wide brim shrouded his eyes

“No,” said Jon. “This was... somewhat spur-of-the-moment.”

“Well,” the man drawled, “you’re here. What can I do for you?”

“I’d like you to tell me about this place. This... farm.”

“Glad to,” said the avatar easily.

“You know who he is,” Martin said, not quite a question.

“Sure do. He wants my story, he can have it. I’m not makin’ a fuss.”

“...You’re not afraid of him?”

The man grinned and finally removed his hat, revealing a lean face and soap-bubble eyes. “He wants to finish me, he’s welcome to do that, too. I’ve had a good run.”

“...I’ll bet.”

“Martin,” said Jon, touching his arm briefly. “I... don’t suppose there’s somewhere for my boyfriend to rest, while I...” He husked out a laugh. “While I take your statement?”

The man studied Martin curiously for a moment, and then shrugged and pointed up the hill, to the small frame house not far away that overlooked the field. “You’re welcome to rest there, if you like, while we talk shop.”

“Thanks, but I’ll—” Martin paused and looked again at the very wet fertilizer under his boots. “Actually, yeah, I think I will. I’ll just... go up and sit on the porch.”

“Whatever you like,” said the tall man amiably.

He and Jon watched Martin make his way up the rise to the house, and settle into one of the wicker rocking chairs on the front porch, where he could easily keep them in his sights.

Jon turned to the avatar of Terminus and narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “Right. Well then... Tell me your story, Theodore Kassler.”

“Teddy, please. And... where would you like me to start?”

* * *

“You’re joking. His name was ‘Teddy’? Really?”

“I am entirely serious.”

“Fine, well, _Teddy_ didn’t seem so bad.”

“No, he was... heh, actually,” said Jon, “he was actually quite pleasant to deal with. He just seemed glad to have someone to talk to. ”

“Honestly, he would’ve been good-looking if he wasn’t so gaunt.”

“This is the second time you’ve called an avatar of the End ‘handsome,’” Jon teased him. “Should I be worried?”

Martin grumbled indistinctly and hunched his shoulders. Jon only grinned.

* * *

“Jon? Jon, where are you? I can smell something... I think it’s—I think it’s saltwater!”

“Martin? Martin! Can you hear me?”

Martin stretched out a hand into the mist. “I’m here, Jon.”

“Oh, thank god.” Jon slumped against Martin’s chest. “We can’t keep doing this.”

“This fog is awful... I’ve never seen anything like it, not even—” He gritted his teeth and made himself say the words. “Not even when I was with Peter, in the Lonely.”

“If this keeps up, we’re going to get separated. Even holding hands, sometimes it feels like you’re not even _there_ , and if one of us lets go and wanders off..”

Martin stopped dead in his tracks. “Okay, that’s... Hang onto my jacket a sec.”

While Jon clung to the back of Martin’s jacket with both hands, Martin dug into his knapsack and pulled out the coil of rope that he had carried all the way down from what had once been Scotland. He wrapped it around his waist a few times and tied a sturdy knot, then unraveled the other end and did the same to Jon. “Should’ve done this ages ago,” he tried to joke. “Would’ve kept you from getting too far ahead of me.”

They pushed on through the fog, Jon stumbling with every third step. His leg was bleeding freely now; the red stain on his trouser leg was the only color either of them could see. “Jon, d—do you want to stop? Or, or you could wait here, and I could go on ahead?”

Jon’s head was so low, his chin was nearly on his chest. “Do you want to go on alone?”

“I... I do, yes. But I’m trying not to listen to that urge.”

“Okay. Let’s... let’s keep going. It’s not... I don’t think it’s much farther.”

They kept trudging. Jon would lead for a little while, then keep pace with Martin, then end up trailing so far behind that Martin was practically dragging his limp body by the rope.

Finally, rather than arguing in circles with him for the fifteenth time, Martin simply knelt down where he had crumpled and picked him up, carrying Jon not on his back, but curled up in his arms, cradled against his chest. Jon made no protest, only clutched at the dirty wool of Martin’s jumper. And they went on.

Neither of them could see more than a few inches through the fog, which was now almost as solid as a snowbank, but Martin had no doubt that they were going in the right direction. He could could feel the tide pulling in his chest, could smell and taste the salt on his tongue.

“What’s that?”

Martin peered up through the mist. He could just barely make it out: a light, ghostly and pale, cutting through the fog. “It’s... I think it’s a lighthouse.

Jon stiffened in his arms. “Put me down, Martin. This is—”

“Yes,” said Martin. His voice surprised him with how quiet and calm it sounded. “This is it.” He set Jon down gently and helped him find his balance. “Come on,” he said, taking Jon’s hand. “I can—I think I know the way now.”

The dirt road under their boots changed to a gravel path, and then with his outstretched hand, Martin found a door, old and wooden with peeling paint scraping at his palm. He groped for a knob or a handle, and then the door opened under his touch and they stumbled inside, into the lighthouse’s ground level.

There wasn’t much to see: a circular room with some curved benches, hard uncomfortable wood, set against the walls. A single window, peering out onto a long and bleak and rocky shoreline, upon which waves crashed, sending sprays of gritty water washing over the blurry glass. And in the center, a stone staircase, spiraling up into the impenetrable fog.

Jon shivered; Martin didn’t seem to notice the cold.

“At least there are benches,” he said, already beginning to sound distant. “You should sit, Jon. Rest your leg. Find out what this place is.”

“I... I can’t.” Jon grimaced and shook his head, trying to find the clarity that reaching for a statement usually brought. “I can’t, it’s...” His eyes widened in horror. “I can’t. Not with you here.”

“Why not?” asked Martin, though he sounded more resigned than confused.

“Because... the statement the Eye wants is _yours_. It needs you to experience your domain.” The Archivist’s words shifted from frightened to enraged. “And for me to See it through you. It wants your terror.”

“I guess that makes sense. I did insist on coming here, and... this place is for me.”

“Yes. Martin, I-I can’t go with you.”

“I know. This place is... I need to be alone.”

Jon watched with a dull mounting horror as Martin untied the rope that had kept them together and safe through the fog. When it was nothing but a neat coil in Martin’s hand, Jon stretched up on his toes and kissed him lightly on the lips; he was trembling too hard to do more. “Please,” he whispered, “please come back. Even if you ultimately decide to stay, don’t... don’t leave me alone here, without knowing.”

Martin rested his forehead against Jon’s. “I found my way out once before,” he reminded Jon, reassuringly enough, though there wasn’t as much feeling behind the words as there should have been. “I’ll find you again, Jon. I’ll be okay.”

Something inside Jon felt like it was breaking as he let Martin go up the stairs, and watched him be enveloped by the vapours that smelled of salt and rot. If Martin decided to remain, to give himself fully to the powers sustaining him and rule his domain... there was nothing Jon could do to stop him. He would simply have to go on. Without Martin.

The fog curled hungrily around him. Jon shot it a glowing green Look, and it retreated abruptly, leaving him untouched on the bench, in the center of a six-foot circle of bare floorboards.

He looked down at his trouser leg, stiff with blood, and at the tape recorder in his hands. “Right,” he whispered, and pressed Record.


	9. Observation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin faces his domain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters in two days! I decided I needed to get this one in before the next episode dropped.
> 
> Content warnings for isolation, feelings of abandonment, misplaced responsibility, feelings of uselessness, voyeurism, request for assisted suicide, definite misuse of Beholding powers. 
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who’s been able to comment and leave kudos so far. Your feedback is keeping me going. ♥

**[tape clicks on]**

You really _don’t_ want to do this.

You’ve been steadfastly _not thinking_ about this for what feels like ages now, ever since you learned that you have a domain of your own, one that’s feeding you, the way the Archives feed Jon. Even when you asked him to bring you here, you tried to avoid what it really meant, even though it’s been obvious from the beginning. Humans don’t have domains in this place. Humans aren’t feared. But no one’s afraid of _you_ , right?

Maybe they should be.

But you _did_ ask Jon to bring you here, and the closer you got, the stronger the smell of salt in the air and the stronger the pull of the tide in your chest, the one that’s been there ever since you said goodbye to him in that cold, lonely hospital room. It’s never gone away, and it never will.

So you climb. Place one filthy boot on one time-worn stone step, and then the next, and then the next.

The stairs go on forever. There are no other levels, no living quarters or areas for storage, not for a long time. There are only the stairs, curving up and up into the fog-filled tower as it narrows into nothingness overhead. Every so often, there’s a window, and you look out, but there’s nothing to see except more fog and, occasionally, the sea outside, blue-black and forbidding. You focus on your feet, and keep climbing.

You’ve been... struggling, since the Unknowing, since Jon spend six months neither living nor dying and you became an unwitting pawn in a metaphysical card game between two very powerful fear avatars. Really, you’ve been struggling all your life, but it’s not like working for the Institute made it any easier. And then Jon... didn’t die. And Peter told you what was at stake. And things got... harder.

Feelings have always been hard. You’ve never known quite how you’re supposed to feel or express those feelings. It was so much easier learning how _not_ to feel things... but that had come with its own drawbacks, and you’ve understood Jon’s fear of losing his humanity far more deeply than you’ve ever admitted, to him or towards yourself.

But you’ve been fighting it. You know what makes you human—caring about people makes you human, and you’ve been clinging to that tooth and claw, as best as you can, under the circumstances. Caring is doing things for your friends, for the people you love. It’s hard and it often hurts, but it’s what you do. It’s who you are. It’s just... hard to care for everyone at once, so you focus on one person at a time. Think about now, _now_. Think about the big picture only in broad outlines. Plan for the broad outlines. Don't think about specific consequences, especially not the specific consequences of what undoing the end of the world might mean for the one you love.

You’re still losing yourself, a little bit at a time. Every step closer to the Panopticon, every step up the stairs. But taking care of Jon helps you keep a grip on yourself, keeps you grounded. And Jon is below. He’s waiting for you. You _have_ to find your way back to him.

You can feel the multitude of weight that is the gaze of the Archivist, and your stomach clenches in revulsion. You have always forbidden him to See and Know you as fervently as he wishes, even when doing so defies the will of the Eye, defies his very purpose. Why did you agree to this? Why did you bring him here? You could have left him behind in the fog and come alone. He is weak and wounded from the Hunter’s bite. It ought not to have harmed him, but he cared too much. Loved her, even, as a friend and comrade. He loves you infinitely more, you cannot deny that now. And you... love... him. Will you be the death of one another?

You look up and see through the mist that there is an opening in the ceiling. A hatchway. The stairs pass through it on their endless spiral upward so you pass through it as well, and emerge at last into another bare room.

This one is familiar. There is a fireplace with damp logs and uncomfortable chairs, with mirrors that show only your own unfamiliar face, and open windows to let the fog stream in, but there is something else. There is... a woman.

You have never seen her before, but you know her eyes and her hair, and you _hate_ those eyes. She says nothing, only pulls a small object of brass and wood from her pocket and holds it out to you. It is an old-fashioned sea captain’s spyglass. Slowly, you open it, extend it to its full length, and peer out the window where she indicates.

Far away on the raging ocean, you see a ship, long and battered and steel-gray, multitudes of colorful containers stacked on its decks. Not so many as their should be; the storm has torn many away. Just barely, you can see the moving figures of sailors, trying to make fast the shipping containers... or to hold on for dear life. And painted on the side of the buckling hull is the name _‘Tundra’_. You did this, you realize. And then, no, no, the Archivist—Jon destroyed Peter Lukas, left the ship and crew to wander the ocean, lost and purposeless without their captain. But he did it for you. Jon killed him for _you_.

With shaking fingers you thrust the spyglass back at the woman... but she will not take it, only turns back to the window, ignoring you completely. You slip the glass into your pocket and mount the stairs again.

You’re not sure why the sight of the _Tundra_ and her crew rattles you so much. You never knew them, they’re not your responsibility. Why should you care?

It’s all a performance, really. Caring for people. You don’t ever feel like you’re doing the right thing. Maybe you never have done, except for Jon. The rest of it, for other people... it hasn’t ever felt quite... real? You’ve tried all your life to be a good person, to do the right thing, the kind thing, and it’s never worked out before, never. You gave up your education and a good chunk of your life to care for a woman who did nothing but belittle you and push you away. Your friends turned against you. Your employer used you. The partners you’ve had in the past all left. Was any of it real?

You want it to all be real, so very badly, because you are _scared_.

You care about Jon, though. You know you do. It’s the only thing that’s felt real for a long time. And cutting yourself of from Jon to protect him, isolating yourself to become a suitable sacrifice for the Lonely, you did all of that willingly, because you thought you were helping—to save the world, yes, but The World is abstract and Jon is... immediate. Concrete. Real. It seemed worth it, at the time.

You know better now.

You tried to help keep Jon human, and you failed. You tried to save the world, and you failed. You tried to save Jon and he wouldn’t let you. And now you’re still trying to find a way to protect Jon and destroy Elias and rid the world of the Entities and you are _still going to fail_.

What’s the point? The world that was didn’t care if you lived or died, and the world that is _certainly_ doesn’t care. And you can’t make it care. You’re not even human anymore. So why are you still trying to set yourself on fire to keep other people warm?

There is a presence in the lighthouse with you. No... not a presence... an emotion, a-a _feeling_. For a second or two, you’re confused, because you thought you were aware of what you were feeling, but no, this isn’t you. This is outside of you. You can... _taste_ it. Not the rot-tinged moisture of the fog, not the ever-present briny tang in the air, but the sweet, slippery-hot taste of _terror_. Your feet stumble on the worn steps and you almost fall, but by merest instinct your hand catches the rusted iron railing. You barely notice; you are too busy drinking in this intangible nectar.

Where is it coming from? From this domain, clearly, after all, this is _your_ domain, but... you can’t pinpoint the source. Is it up? Is that what the top of the lighthouse holds, the source of this blissful cocktail of fear that you can somehow taste in your bones and your blood and your groin and in the back of your throat, where it feels like someone else’s tears?

Is this what it was like, for the thing that called itself Sasha but was never Sasha? Is this what Jude Perry craved, what Jared Hopworth learned to serve? Is... is this what Jon tastes, whenever he takes a statement?

Your entire self revolts at the notion, and you stop and try to vomit... but you can’t. Fear isn’t something you can rid yourself of so easily, especially not the fear of others. And you never thought to wonder before, what fear tasted like. You were a fighter, in your school days—a big stocky lad urged to try out for boxing and wrestling, and you did and were good at it, and even helped warn off other kids who were making trouble for your friends. But you were never one of the bullies. You never realized how good the fear of others could taste and _feel_... and you don’t like that you know it now. And will never be able to not know it.

You can see another ceiling, and another square hole to let the staircase pass through. But this is where the stairs end. Your legs are tired—no... no, they’re not, but you feel like they should be. No matter, you quicken your pace and at last, you mount the final step into the room where the light should be.

And there is _so much light_... but not from a lamp.

You look around and you see the glare from hundreds of CCTV screens, and the reflection of hundreds and thousands of windows and spyglasses, telescopes and camera lenses. Every screen shows a different picture, clear and stark, of a person, desperate to be alone but always seen.

And right in the center of it all, there is a chair. The only comfortable chair you have seen. It is empty. It looks... inviting.

There is a man in this room at the top of the lighthouse that is not a lighthouse, whom you think you know and hate but do not know at all. He is like the woman below, not afraid, but sad and tired. They do not rule here. They have been waiting for you.

This man you do not know, with eyes that you hate, gestures to the chair. It is for you. And with a horrible sense of déjà vu, you sit down.

With a rush like a great wave, suddenly you can see... _everything_ in your domain. Every person, old and young, every gender and presentation, everyone trapped here, for your pleasure. All of them trapped in the most viscerally awful moment of their lives—the moment of a loved one’s death—the aftermath of the worst job interview imaginable—in the grip of a panic attack—in the midst of a disastrous sexual encounter.

Their most vulnerable moments, their most intimate moments, the times when they just want to be left alone and to get away, to curl up with their pain and nothing else... and they can’t. There are always cameras and pictures and people and eyes... and every single person is frozen in anguish and terror, trapped in the knowledge that their shame and embarrassment and grief are all being watched.

It is the worst thing you can imagine, and it is glorious.

You keep trying to turn away, keep trying to will movement into your legs and flee back down the stairs but... you’ve been following the Archivist’s lead for so long, been so weak and defenseless for so long... and drinking in the terror of so many bared souls feels _so good_. They can’t get away, they can’t find you, you’re safe up here. You feel enormous, unending, invincible, like you could fight a god—!

You—you _are_ the god of this place, you realize. This Observatory. It is your purpose. Not to fight, not to interact, not even to Know, but to _Observe_. What else is there for you to do? Keep wandering the wastelands of this ruined world until the end of everything, a servant to the Archivist? Not even as his lover, for what love is to be found in such places as these?

If you stay here, you and Jon, you will be safe. It is quiet here, and you have each other, and with so many people entrapped in your domain, surely you can feed the Eye enough for the two of you. Jon will be safe here... until he fades away, and you are finally, completely alone, a Lonely king in his own private castle where he can See everything and no one can keep secrets from him ever again. Just like you’ve always wanted.

This is what you’ve always wanted... isn’t it?

‘No,’ you hear yourself protesting, even though you know it’s a lie, because you _do_ want it. You _want_ this terror that is sustaining you, and you hate yourself for it, because wanting it means that you’re just as monstrous as any other avatar. Just as inhuman as the things you urged Jon to kill, just as much of a monster as the Archiv—as Jon.

And you know what Jon does to monsters.

You recoil in horror, not only at the thought of your own deep desire, but at the realization that staying means condemning Jon to a slow fading death by starvation, and the knowledge that this place, _your_ domain, is using this very special brand of voyeuristic terror to feed _you_.

You wrench yourself from the chair in the center of the Observatory, and flee back down the spiral staircase as fast as you can, praying that it leads back to where Jon is waiting.

**[tape clicks off]**

* * *

If he had wanted to, Jon could have Known precisely how long he had been sitting on that uncomfortable bench since finishing Martin’s statement. He could have known down to a nanosecond the exact amount of time he had been waiting for a horrified and heart-broken Martin to find his way back down the stairs. Back to him.

He could have Known... but it had felt like a very long time, and that was all he really needed.

Jon jerked his head up at the sound of boot soles slipping haphazardly down smooth stone. “Martin! Martin, follow my voice!”

The footsteps came faster and faster, accompanied by a strange choking sound, and then Jon heard a crash, and saw a blue of blues and browns come tumbling too-fast down the stairs.

Martin hit the old wooden floorboards with a sickening thump. “Shit—Martin!” Jon hobbled over as fast as he could, wincing, and half-knelt, half-collapsed beside him. “Martin, I’m here,” he said, touching his hair, which had gone almost white. “That was—are you okay?”

Instead of answering, Martin shoved him away, and curled into a ball, sobbing. “Leave me alone,” he gasped.

“I am very much not going to do that.” But he didn’t touch Martin again, only let him cry out some of the tears that had been building inside him for so long.

“I can’t,” he whimpered, “I can’t—I don’t _**care**_ , Jon!”

“Martin,” said Jon, very softly, “of course you care.”

“I don’t! I _can’t!_ I don’t know how to anymore. If I ever knew how to at all. Basira, Daisy—I don’t feel anything, I don’t care. I haven’t been able to since...” He looked up with wild, anguished eyes. “I’m so glad you killed him. He took so much from me. At least I used to be able to pretend I knew how to care about people, and I can’t even do that anymore.”

Jon looked like he was about to shatter. Slowly, carefully, he shook his head. “You care about me.”

Martin let out a wet, salt-tinged cough. “Yeah, well, that’s not hard to figure out.”

“And you care enough about the people trapped here to—”

“But I _don’t_ , can’t you understand that? I don’t feel anything for _them_ , I just can’t be the reason that they’re in pain!” He looked up at Jon suddenly and his eyes were pale and wild. “Jon, you have to kill me.”

“What?! Martin, n—”

“Jon, _please!_ I can’t do this, I can’t be the-the leech consuming all of this, I can’t, please, Jon. You have to. Turn the Eye on me. Behold _me_ , Jon, and end one more monster.”

“We’re all monsters here, Martin.” Then, “Oh god, you can’t... don’t ask me to... You… you really want this?”

“Jon, I... Please. I can’t. I don’t want this. _Please._ ”

Jon gazed at him numbly. “Okay,” he said at last. “Okay.”

Martin closed his eyes and waited, waited for the static to rise and for Jon’s voice to call out to the Ceaseless Watcher, waited for the terror and the pain and the final glitching agony of obliteration.

But all he heard was a soft rustle of clothing, and when he opened his eyes, Jon was kneeling painfully before him. “Do it, Jon,” he begged, shutting his eyes tight again.

“I am.” Jon put his long, thin hands on either side of Martin’s face. “Look at me.”

“I… Jon, I… fuck,” he spat, laughing in disgust at himself. “I’m scared.”

“I know. Try, for me.”

“Anything.” The word slipped out before Martin realized, and then he was looking at Jon, into Jon’s fearsome eyes and... And then… “Oh. Oh, Jon… that’s… you’re…” Dimly, he felt himself raising his hands to Jon’s face, and then Jon was pulling him closer, until their foreheads pressed together and he could barely even see Jon’s eyes, they were so close, but that didn’t matter because he could _feel_ Jon. “You’re… everywhere. I... oh Christ, it _hurts_ , but... but I’m not... How…?”

“Because I See you, Martin,” Jon murmured, stroking the tears from Martin’s cheeks. “I See you. I – _Know_ – you, now, inside and out. And… you’re not afraid of me.”

“S-so… no smiting?”

Jon laughed, short and sharp. “Not from me. You’ve got nothing to expose that I haven’t already Seen.”

It was… bright, white-hot and terrifying, feeling Jon in every cell of his body and every corner of his mind, but it was the best kind of terror, and something inside him shuddered blissfully as the power of the Archivist’s Sight swept through him, Looking for something, Looking at everything that he was.

Suddenly, Martin felt him beginning to pull away and clung to his face, kissing him hard, trying to hang on.

“Martin,” Jon said huskily, “it’s okay. You’re okay. I’m here. I still see you.”

“I see you, too… I see you, Jon.”

“Listen to me.” And Jon gripped him very hard by both shoulders. “You are my reason, you are my anchor. You are the one that I love. Do you hear me? You are _mine_. Not the Eye’s, not the Lonely’s, _mine_. If I can lay claim to anything in this hellscape, it’s you. And no dread power gets to take you from me.”

* * *

It took them a long time to get their bearings, after that, but eventually, they got up and got their packs together, and Jon caught Martin’s hand and held it tightly as they walked away from the Observatory. His leg began to behave itself the moment they hit the dirt road back towards their original route.

“Jon?” asked Martin, after an interminable time of walking through the unending twilight. “Were you… doing… something else? While you were… Knowing me?”

“I—god, you don’t have to make it sound so… biblical.”

“No, I know that. That was…” Martin shivered at the memory. “Definitely not sex, but definitely… intimate.”

“Yes,” Jon agreed softly. “I’m… sorry. I know you didn’t want me to Know things about you, and this was, well, rather more _dramatic_ than just Knowing your favorite superhero film.”

“…Are you apologizing for not having the power to kill me because you literally love me too much?”

“I… wasn’t sure it would work. If there was an ounce of any fear of me in you, if you had wanted to be destroyed more than you wanted help…”

“But I didn’t.” There was wonder in his voice, and Martin couldn’t feel ashamed of it. “It was… I’ve never hated myself, Jon. Not like that. But what that place was doing to those people… I didn’t know I could be that cruel.”

“It’s not about intention. It never is. That place, it was formed out of your emotions, out of...” Jon took a deep breath. “Out of a lot of things, obviously. But there was a lot of how you felt about me killing Peter Lukas. About destroying one of the Lonely with the powers of the Eye. So, in a way, the Observatory is as much my fault as it is yours.”

“Don’t, Jon, don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Try and take away some of my guilt. You have enough of your own.”

“Well, isn’t that what partners are for? Share and share alike?”

Martin snorted wetly. “We’re _boyfriends_ , Jon, not... co-peddlers in terror.”

“Aren’t we?”

“…I’m really changing into something inhuman, aren’t I.”

“You could always be a beautiful super-powered hell-monster, if you prefer.”

“Jon.”

“…Yes. I don’t know for what purpose, not really… you still have a few more possibilities open to you, than I do. But I’ve… felt it coming on for a while. And so did you,” Jon added, apologetically, “but you were… well. Never quite ready to admit it, I suppose.”

“It’s…” Martin stepped over a large and ominous puddle in the path and then turned back to offer Jon an arm to lean on as he hopped over. “It really is stupid, under the circumstances.”

“Stupid emotions are still real emotions.”

“That sounds like something I’d say.”

“It is. You don’t think I’d come up with a pithy little nugget of wisdom like that all on my own, do you?”

Martin grinned shakily, and then pulled him into a brief, tight hug. “I love you.”

Jon pressed a fervent kiss against Martin’s pale hair. “I was trying to burn out the Lonely,” he whispered. “When I was Knowing you. That’s the other thing you felt. I tried desperately, Martin. I never want you to ask that of me again.”

“I’m sorry, Jon.”

“No.” Jon stepped back and took a deep breath. “No apologies, not for this.”

“…Okay… okay. So. Did you?”

“I think… maybe? It felt like I got most of it… but you’re still hanging onto a wisp of it. And I can’t force you to let go of that.”

“Who is the one who walks beside you…”

“What?”

“Nothing, never mind. You did your best,” said Martin. “And maybe… maybe it’ll come in handy, before this is all over. …Come on, we need to keep moving.”

Jon squeezed his hand. “Right.”


	10. Pushing Forward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin's new state of being means that the way forward has changed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter because I'm travelling tomorrow!
> 
> Chapter spans from MAG180 to MAG182. Content warnings: mentions of blood, mentions of assisted suicide/smiting.
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who’s been able to comment and leave kudos so far. Your feedback is keeping me going. ♥

The trip back to their original route was actually surprisingly uneventful. Jon deliberately skirted around the domains they had already visited, during their detour, and in the face of the endless expanse of wasteland, there was nothing else for them to do, except walk.

Walk a lot, as it turned out.

“And you’re _sure_ you’re okay?” Martin asked again. “It’s been—it feels like it’s been a long time since you’ve taken a statement, and we’ve just been going around these domains.”

“I’ve already ‘reported’ on them. There’s nothing new for the Eye there.”

“But what about _you_? Aren’t you getting... y’know... hungry?”

“Honestly? I... I feel fine. Which is...” Jon sighed and kicked a lump of rock down the dirt road. “The Observatory was very... sustaining.”

“...Ah.”

“Martin, I—you should know, I’m... not entirely comfortable with the realization that I basically fed on you.”

“...Yeah. Me neither, now that you put it like that. But it’s... it’s okay. You didn’t know that’s what you were doing.”

“I _thought_ I was killing you.”

“Well, obviously you didn’t, so can you please stop torturing yourself over this? I mean, you’ve got enough on your plate as it is.”

“Martin, you… you don’t need to worry. It’s not permanent. The Knowing.”

“You mean you’re not living in my head.”

“Something like that, yes. I won’t do it again.”

“Unless I ask.”

“I, I suppose, but… why would you?”

“You might need to, y’know. Feed.”

“No.”

Martin swallowed. “It didn’t feel… bad, Jon. It was…”

“Terrifying. You were scared, _I_ was scared. And you were crying blood.”

“Wait, I was?!”

“Ye—well. I thought it was blood. But it was only tears... Either way, it’s not something I’m likely to forget soon. Or want to repeat.”

“You didn’t hurt me, Jon. Yes, I was scared. But I wasn’t scared of _you_. I was—it was like the first time you kissed me. The first time we woke up together. Hell, the first time I realized that I loved you. It was… I’ve never imagined being that close to someone. It wasn’t just you Knowing me, it was the feeling of… acceptance. The complete lack of judgment.”

“Yes,” said Jon, his voice hoarse and soft, “I… I felt the same way. Because you were looking back. You Saw me.”

Martin curled his fingers around Jon’s hand. “I’ve always seen you, Jon.”

“Even when I couldn’t be bothered. God, I was an idiot.”

“Mm. Well. It’s worked out.”

They walked on in companionable silence, for a long time, until they found themselves passing the furnace where Daisy had died.

“How did you bear it?” Martin asked. “Knowing what you were Becoming... what kept you from just... giving up? Becoming the monster?”

“For me... it was a lot of things. A lot of it was just plain stubbornness. And fear. I didn't want to be a monster, didn't... want to _participate_ in my becoming a monster. If it was going to happen, I wanted to have no say in it. But that isn't how it works. Part of you just... has to accept it. Submit to it. And I couldn't do that. I still can't.

“But a lot of it... was you. It was always you. Even if we weren’t together, even before... I couldn’t stand the thought that someday you might look at me and hate what you saw. I-I-I don’t mean that I was relying on you to keep me grounded,” Jon continued hastily, “even then. Just... I trusted you, and your opinion was important to me, and...” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “Even when you refused to see me... even if I never saw you again, just the fact that you were alive and in the world made me... not want to let you down. Does... does that make sense?”

“I think so,” said Martin softly. Something in his chest felt... fragile.

* * *

Picking up his knapsack the second he saw Jon put the tape recorder away, Martin rose from the steps of the mausoleum where he had settled himself and hurried to rejoin him before Jon could get too far ahead. _Maybe I should get the rope out again... put a leash on him..._

Jon seemed more or less calm, but as soon as he got close enough, Jon reached for him, wrapping his arms around Martin tightly and burying his face in Martin’s chest.

“Whoa, hey—okay, okay,” Martin said, holding Jon close. “Was this one bad?”

“Yeah. Are... are you okay?”

“Hm? Fine, why?”

“Nothing happened, while I was... intoning?”

“Nothing at all. I was right over there.” Martin jerked his head down the avenue. “Saw you the whole time.”

Jon let out a rush of breath. “Thank god. This one was... I thought... I was worried this one was about you, too.”

“You don’t Know?”

“I didn’t Look, I promised I wouldn’t.”

“Yeah, but—it’s a _statement_ , you can’t _not_ Know.”

“I...” Jon frowned in concentration, his eyes became the Archivist’s eyes, and Martin heard a brief, irritating scratch of static. “You’re... you’re pushing me out. You’re _hiding_ from me.”

“I’m _what_?”

“I just tried to look inside your head and there’s a _barrier_.”

“But... I’m not doing anything. And how is that even possible?”

“I don’t know!” said Jon with delight. “Look, I want to check something.”

“Um... okay...”

“May I have permission to Know something about you?”

“...Yes? Yes.”

“Think of... think of a question. Any question.”

“Okay, sure... go ahead.” Again, Martin heard that brief rise of white noise, like his granddad’s old television set.

“Yes,” said Jon after a moment.

“Yes? Yes, it-it worked?”

“Yes, it worked, and yes, I do play a musical instrument.”

“...Wait, you _do_? That was literally the first inane question I could think of, I didn’t... what instrument?”

“Harmonica.”

“You’re _joking_.”

“I’m not! I taught myself when I was a kid.”

“Your gran must’ve loved that.”

“Er... not really. But it kept me in the house, at least, and—”

“Nope, no, topic at hand. Why can’t you Know things about me now unless I give you permission? Is this, like, dream logic again?”

Jon raked his hands through his hair. “I, I... I think so? I’m trying to understand it but...” He grimaced. “I don’t think the Beholding is thrilled with this turn of events.”

“No, it... probably doesn’t like that there can be things about me that you’re not allowed to know. But _why_ can I do that, Jon?”

“I’m not... completely clear on the ‘why’. All the information is there but I can’t quite... put it all together? But I think it’s because of what happened at the Observatory. I had...” Jon swallowed and, to Martin’s amusement, blushed. “I had to Know you, utterly, and-and you had to accept it, before you could... protect yourself.”

“Uh... thanks?” Martin grinned and brushed his knuckles over Jon’s warm cheek. “Still adorable, by the way.”

“Yes, yes, so you mentioned... Come on, I want to see what’s up ahead.”

“Alright, then. Lead on Scooby, let’s go solve a mystery, ooooh...”

* * *

“It—it’s like something out of a National Trust brochure.”

“I’m pretty sure it is National Trust,” said Jon. “Was, anyway.”

“But you don’t know for sure?”

Jon shook his head. “No. I can’t see anything about it. If I had to guess… Upton House, maybe? I mean, country houses and stately homes not exactly my specialist subjects.”

“But it’s… it’s fine. It’s better than fine. T-There are trees. Look! Like, real trees!”

“It’s beautiful,” said Jon dreamily. But there was hesitation shot through his wonderment, that turned Martin's enjoyment of it sour.

“Is it another place like where Georgie and Melanie are? A dead zone?”

Jon hesitated. “It... feels similar but...” He trailed off, grimacing, and Martin saw the ghostly outlines of many eyelids on his face, their lashes trembling with poorly repressed pain. “I think it’s even more drastic than that. A real blind spot, somewhere the Eye can’t reach at all.”

“...So you staying here would be an even worse idea than last time.”

“It would be worse for both of us,” said Jon. “You’re more...”

“Yeah. More... _whatever_ I am, than I was before.”

“Yes. I think...” Jon swallowed once or twice, trembling with the strain of controlling himself. “I think this place could end up actually being fatal, if we were to stay.”

“Right,” said Martin firmly. “So we go around.”

“Yes.” They looked longingly at the beautiful oasis before them. “I’m sorry.”

“Can’t be helped. Still... another rest would’ve been nice.” Martin put his arm around Jon’s shoulders and hugged him briefly. “C’mon. Around we go. At least we can enjoy the landscaping for a little while.”

* * *

**[tape clicks on]**

“Jon? You said that place was a complete blind spot from the Eye.”

“Yes, as far as I could tell. I couldn’t Know for sure, which was... kind of a good giveaway.”

“And we’re both connected to the Eye.”

“Yes. Although to different extents. You’re more—”

“You said being there for too long would kill us.”

“Yes.”

“Being cut off from the Eye... It’s not good for me. It’s not good for _us_ , but it’s especially not good for me.”

“Yeah, but if, if you’re that connected, that dependent, what happens if we actually, y’know, do manage to—”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, we just need to keep pushing forward.”

**[tape clicks off]**

* * *

He kept a worried eye on Jon as they left the Wellbeing facility. More worried than usual. “You okay?”

“Hm? Oh... more or less, I guess? A little tired, I suppose. That place was... well. A lot. And then Breekon... it took a lot out of me.”

Martin nodded. “That kinda took me by surprise, you know. I thought you were going in for godless blackmail now, rather than smiting.”

“I am—I mean, I’m trying to.”

“Okay, but you didn’t even bother threatening that guy at the Body Farm, and now Breekon—”

“There isn’t really any point in threatening an avatar of the End, Martin, they literally don’t care. And Breekon...”

Martin waited for Jon to find the ends of his thoughts and tie them together. “Jon?” he prodded after some time. “You okay?”

“It’s so strange, but I feel... honestly, I feel a bit like I’m in mourning. Not for Breekon, obviously, but for the... idea, I guess, of the partnership he and Hope had. They worked together for centuries, to the point where they were basically the same person.”

“I hope you’re not drawing the parallel I think you’re drawing.”

“It’s not entirely inappropriate. I mean, we do deliver terror and death.”

“That’s... we’re not the same person.”

“No, but I literally can’t imagine trying to survive these horrors without you.”

 _He deserved it,_ Martin thought but did not say. He knew how Jon would respond. _He earned it that loneliness._ And he didn’t recoil from the notion, because it felt true.

“And if you were gone... I mean, there’s no one who could end my suffering, if I needed them to.”

“So it was... what, a mercy killing?”

“He’s hardly the first person out here to ask that of me.”

“That’s—ugh,” Martin sighed. “Shit.”

“Sorry.”

“No, it’s... I guess I earned that. And I suppose I’m in the same boat as you. Because it seems like you _can’t_ smite me, even if you wanted to.”

“I very much do not want to.”

“Hmph. Guess that means neither of us is allowed to die.”

“Right.”

“So, where to next?”

“Let me check our route...” Jon stopped short, so suddenly that Martin almost bowled him over. “Oh... oh no.”

“What, what is it?”

“Oh, I don’t like this... You’re not going to like it, either.”

“Spit it out, Jon.”

“It’s... it’s Hilltop Road. And Annabelle... she’s waiting for us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Show dialogue from MAG 180: Moving On, MAG 181: Ignorance, MAG 182: Wellbeing


	11. Choices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys finally arrive at Hill Top Road. Annabelle Cane is waiting for them, and she wants to talk. Just... talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a long and fairly plot-heavy (hopefully plot-hole-light) chapter. Also there are Feels. Have tissues and stuffed animals ready, just in case. 
> 
> Content warnings for: discussions of self-sacrifice & suicidal ideation.
> 
> For the record, I cannot **wait** for the hiatus to happen because I’m just... quietly hyperventilating into a paper bag that I keep predicting small, utterly inconsequential but also weirdly _specific_ things? I need to get this fic moving faster.
> 
> Lastly, I’m writing exactly two (2) things in November: a ridiculous Regency scifi novel for NaNoWriMo, and Magnus Archives fics, so [please head over to my Tumblr and send me TMA prompts (anons welcome).](https://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/post/631996308960477184/magnus-archives-prompt-list)
> 
> As always, Thank you so much to everyone who’s been able to comment and leave kudos so far. Your feedback is amazing. ♥

As they got closer to Hill Top Road, Jon’s steps began to slow, and then to stumble. “Whoa, hey, easy,” said Martin, putting out a hand to keep Jon from falling forward. “Is it your leg?”

“Nngh… no, the leg’s fine, I just… need a minute.” Jon dropped his bag to the broken cement of the sidewalk and sat down heavily on it, cradling his head in his hands.

Martin crouched down before him, gently running his fingers through Jon’s hair. “Just take your time,” he murmured. Without looking up, Jon angled his head into Martin’s touch.

“Sorry,” Jon muttered, grimacing, and Martin heard a rise of static in the faint pained roar that was always in the background now. “Sorry, it’s just… I’m getting bombarded with information, the closer we get, and…” He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Makes it difficult to walk and breathe at the same time.”

“Makes sense,” said Martin, pitching his voice low so as not to add to Jon’s discomfort. “It’s okay. We’re not in a rush. So you… you process.” He didn’t move, just stayed there touching Jon’s face and stroking his hair, until Jon’s breathing slowed and he straightened up and looked at Martin.

“Thank you,” he murmured, ghosting a kiss over Martin’s palm.

“That was scary.”

“Yes.”

“So… what’s going on?”

“It’s about our route. We’ve got two options. We can go around Hill Top Road and continue on as we’ve been going… or we can go directly to the house, and Annabelle, find out what the Eye wants to know… and then, the Panopticon will be our next stop.”

“But we have to visit the house eventually.”

“Yes. The journey is the journey and the end point is… well. It doesn’t really matter how we get there, there’s still only one place we’ll end up. So I’ve had a certain amount of leeway in the route we’ve taken so far, in what domains we’ve entered. But there are still places I’m not allowed to avoid and Hill Top Road is, is one of them. It’s just a question of when.”

Martin studied Jon for a long time. “Personally, I’m for the speed-running option. Let’s, let’s just get this over with.”

“Okay. If you’re sure you’re ready—”

“ _But._ I am also _deeply_ suspicious as to why the Eye is giving us this option at all.”

“It’s, uh… it’s not exactly the Eye…”

“Then wha—no. Ohhh no.”

“The Web’s offering us a shortcut.” Jon let out a frustrated sound. “I can see the threads, being drawn taut, shortening the way for us.”

“In exchange for _what_? There’s got to be a price.”

“There’s always a price, Martin. In this case, it’s… in exchange for listening to whatever Annabelle has to say.”

“Ugh. Great.”

“And then there’s… there’s the house itself. I’ve been trying to take the long way around so far, because I know I can’t avoid it, Martin. The Eye wants to Know about the scar between worlds, and I’m—I’m _reasonably_ sure I won’t die? I mean, if the Eye knew it would kill me, then it probably wouldn’t be willing to sacrifice me.”

“Probably,” repeated Martin flatly. “That’s not especially reassuring, Jon.”

“Well, it’s all I’ve got!”

“You really don’t Know?”

“Not for sure. Whatever it is, it exists outside our own reality. The Eye can’t see into it, but maybe I can. But as to whether I can survive it…” Jon stood and picked up his backpack. “Come on, Martin. It’s not far now.”

* * *

The house on Hill Top Road was, fittingly, somehow, the only house left standing on Hill Top Road. “How’s it look?” asked Martin warily.

“It looks… exactly the same as when I visited,” Jon said. He took a moment to Look inside the house and around the grounds, and then made a face. “I can’t See much, but she’s here. She’s waiting for us.”

“…I don’t suppose we can just keep her waiting for, I dunno, _ever_.”

“Heh. I’m afraid not.”

As they stood at the end of the path, the front door of the house that had haunted so many people creaked open, and there was Annabelle Cane. “If you’re coming in,” she said, making herself heard without the bother of raising her voice, “then come in. If not, I’ve got other things to be getting on with.”

“Naturally… Come on, Martin.”

“Jon, this… maybe we…”

“We’re here now. Might as well just… get it over with.” Jon stepped forward, walking up the path, and as he got closer to the door and to Annabelle, he was vaguely conscious of a viridian-tinged shadow folding around him, as he consciously cloaked himself in the mantle of the Archivist. Martin followed him closely, not wanting to fall too far behind _or_ to let Jon meet the avatar of the Web face-to-face and alone.

She said nothing as they approached, but once they were inside the house, and the door had clicked gently shut behind them, Annabelle Cane smiled. “Archivist. A pleasure to finally meet you, even under these… circumstances.”

“All right, Annabelle. I’m here. What do you want?”

“I had nothing to do with you coming here. As you may recall, I clearly told you not to come back.”

“I tried to respect that demand, Annabelle, I really did. But the Eye had other ideas.”

“Hmm.”

“And so did the Web.”

“And so did you. You could’ve taken the long way round. Curiosity really is going to get you killed, Archivist.”

“Why exactly are _you_ here?” Martin demanded, putting himself between her and Jon. “Hmm? What’s your game?”

Annabelle smiled. It might have even been a charming smile, if not for… everything. “I’m just one person in the middle of a vast network of threads, same as you to.”

“Fine, fine. Why did you call me before?”

“Perhaps I thought you could use a friendly voice?”

“Friendly?! You told me Jon didn’t need me!”

“Objectively true,” said Annabelle, infuriatingly reasonable and still smiling that small, knowing smile. “And more importantly, perhaps I thought that you might need a little bit of righteous indignation to help you power through the next steps.”

Martin glared at her. “I _don’t_ like being manipulated.”

“Then we probably aren’t going to be friends.” She let him stew for a moment. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. The call was… clumsy. There are so many things to keep track of at the moment. I must confess it did perhaps lack my usual… nuance.” Somehow, even with fewer eyes than Jon possessed on a bad day, Annabelle looking at him was far more unnerving. “You’ve got the wrong end of the thread this time, though, Mr. Blackwood. The Web’s got no interest in separating you from the Archivist.”

“Oh, really? And why’s that, hmm? Enlighten me.”

“Because the Web _gave_ you to him.”

Jon reared back in horror. “W-what?”

“Oh, not like that,” Annabelle said, pantomiming reassurance and not achieving it. “You’re not one of ours. Not marked by the Web, I mean, not really. And we certainly didn’t encourage the formation of any _emotions_ that might currently be entangling you. Nevertheless, we did give you to the Archivist – or rather, got Jonah to give you to him.”

“But… why?” Jon asked, utterly stunned. Martin couldn’t even find words to form questions.

Annabelle rolled her eyes at their confusion and beckoned for them to follow her. “C’mon, you two. You should probably sit down for this.”

Without other options, they followed her. As they passed what appeared to be a cellar door, Jon stopped dead in his tracks. “Jon?” Martin prodded. “Jon, we’ve… oh.”

“Yes…”

“That’s… that’s where it is?”

“Keep him moving,” Annabelle called back at them. “You don’t want to lose him just yet.”

“Jon.” Martin put his hands on Jon’s shoulders and gave him a gentle push. “C’mon, we’ve… let’s not lose sight of Annabelle, hmm?”

“Wha—? Oh, I… right, right.”

They joined Annabelle in the house’s kitchen, under a single lightbulb, at a round wooden table that had definitely seen better days. “Careful of splinters,” Martin advised Jon as they sat down. “I’m pretty sure those are teeth marks, round the edge.”

Jon wasn’t looking at the table. His eyes were darting round the shadowy kitchen, hunting out the spiderwebs, and his body was tense to the point of pain. “Why am I here, Annabelle?” he asked again, and this time, he wasn’t just talking about the house.

She didn’t join them at the table, choosing instead to perch on the edge of the battered countertop. “I might ask you the same thing. I didn’t want to come here, you know. I was happy enough in my own little nest, tending to my own plots… but we all have to obey our masters. So… story time.” She leaned forward with a smile, and Martin shuddered. Jon didn’t.

“At first, it was just an idea. An… experiment. To see if someone could survive being marked by all the Dread Powers. And there was a child – an orphaned, dreamy child, neglected both physically and emotionally, who had been so deeply scarred by the Web, but still managed not to be claimed by it. He…you… seemed like an ideal test subject.”

Jon let out a small whimper.

“So we left you alone, only tugging you a bit here and there when we needed you to go in a particular direction, until you ended up on the doorstep of the Magnus Institute. We needed the Eye’s help, you see. It’s not really the habit of the servants of other powers to seek each other out. That kind of curiosity isn’t… healthy. But the Web was aware of Jonah Magnus’s plans, both their origins and their evolution. I mean, it’s not like he was exactly secretive about them. The plan was to wait until you were well-entangled within the temple of the Eye, and then the Web would lay claim to you.” Annabelle sighed; a small black spider skittered over the cobwebs latticed over her skull. “But even master weavers can be caught… off-guard.”

“‘Off-guard,’” Jon repeated, narrowing his eyes. “In what way?”

“In choosing you. Oh, you’re a great larder for paranoia and doubt, but the goal was to create a servant, not a source of food. Someone who could plan, who could scheme and trick and lie.”

“And that is very much not me.”

“No. You were always far, _far_ more suited to the Eye than to the Web, and you were ensnared by the Beholding before the Mother of Puppets could fully wrap you to her side. So it was necessary to… improvise. Because the Web didn’t really want the Change, and especially didn’t want it to happen under the Eye’s auspices. But if it had to happen, we wanted a catalyst who would be loyal to the Web.”

“Which is, again, as far from me as you can probably get.” Jon looked at her bleakly, and then down at his thin, scarred hands laying on the equally scarred table top. “So Elias was wrong. I was always meant for some… purpose. …This purpose.”

“Not quite,” said Annabelle dryly. “No one’s born for a _purpose_ , Archivist. We’re all just here to fill some unique niche in our particular ecology. This one happened to end up being yours. But it’s not as though you’re exactly loyal to the Eye, either. Oh, you serve the Eye, because now you’re part of it. You can’t stop. But you’re not entirely… subsumed. You are both Watcher and Watched. And your Mr. Blackwood is. Well. That and something else entirely.”

“Annabelle.” Jon clenched his hands. “You said the Web gave Martin to me. Why?”

She shrugged. “You needed a reason. And we’ve known you a long time, Jon. You were far more likely to fight for someone you didn’t like than for someone you did.”

Jon remembered the bully of his childhood, remembered two impossibly long limbs and a rigid spine screaming in silent terror. Remembered a dark, forbidding door and the guilt that had never, for one moment in all the years since, left him in peace. “The scar… the Eye wants to know.”

“Do you always do what the Eye wants, Archivist?”

“I…” Jon pushed back from the table and rose. “I need a moment.”

Martin blinked up at him. “Jon? Jon, wait, I—”

“Stay here, Martin,” said Jon, and walked out of the kitchen.

“…Right.”

“He’ll be back soon,” said Annabelle. She lowered herself from the counter with strange silky grace and took the chair opposite Martin. “Or else he just won’t come back. One way or the other, it won’t be long before you know. If you want him to come back, that is.”

Martin glared at her, and felt his eyes growing washed and cold. “Do you even know the difference, anymore, between conversation and manipulation?”

“Perhaps. Perhaps there isn’t one.”

“Look, if he’s about to fling himself into that—that _crack_ in reality—”

“He won’t. He can’t. It’s completely scabbed over. Of course, if anyone in this new world can rip that scab away, it’s the Archivist, but that would be a bad idea at this stage.”

“…Why?” Annabelle smiled and said nothing. “The Web knows what’s on the other side, doesn’t it?”

“It might, yes. We made a few… excursions… before the Change.”

“ _And?_ ”

“You’ll have to do better than that, Mr. Blackwood. Especially since that’s not even the question you really want to ask me, is it?”

“Oh yes, impress me with your spooky cold reading skills. Fine, have it your way: Do you know what will happen to Jon, if we can fix things?”

“I might have an idea of a possibility, but you won’t like it.”

“How surprising. Tell me.”

“Ask nicely.”

“Oh, pretty please? With a nice little putrid cherry on top?”

“You’re very prickly when he’s not around. Do you really need me to spell it out for you? The Archivist is too linked to the Eye, Mr. Blackwood. He practically _is_ the Eye, in this place, a near-perfect embodiment of a Dread Power in one neat little package. What d’you think is going to happen?”

“That’s… not an answer.”

“You don’t want a real answer, though, do you? You want a nice happy ending where you and your prince, no longer all-seeing, ride off in to the sunset and nothing bad ever happens to either of you ever again.”

“And you’re not going to lie to me.”

“I’m not even sure I can lie to you,” said Annabelle. “ _You’re_ too much of the Archivist. Anyway, lying isn’t fun. I never tell them anymore, unless I have to. It lacks finesse. The truth, when it’s deployed correctly, hurts so much more.”

“…Then hurt me. Tell me what will happen to Jon.”

“I can’t predict the future. But anticipating possibilities is all part of skilled manipulation… If everything stopped right now, if you found some way to banish the Dread Powers, the world would snap back to normal, yes… but he would be completely cut off from the Eye. Which, as you might remember, has been the only thing keeping him alive since the Unknowing dropped a building on him.”

“…Oh,” said Martin, very softly.

“Of course, he might _not_ die the instant the world went back to normal – the Archivist is very powerful. But without the Eye to sustain him… well, he wouldn’t have long. Give him a few days, a week, and he’ll just start to… fade… body and mind… until he barely even remembers who you are, let alone who he is.”

“He… you can’t know that.”

“Actually, I can. And I do. He’s not the first Archivist, Mr. Blackwood, only the first complete one. And… well, throughout human history, people have been… curious… about what happens when you sever an Archivist from their patron. Jon wouldn’t be the first to just… waste away into the aether, like a living ghost. He’d die eventually, of course, but it would take a long time.”

“But that’s… you said that was only one possible outcome.”

“I did. Another possible outcome is that you both die trying to drive away the Entities. That one has very good odds.” She perched on the edge of the chewed-looking table. “I should think you’d be willing to sacrifice a great deal, to save him from that fate.”

“I’m done making sacrifices for Jon. That’s not who I am, anymore.”

“Unless those sacrifices benefit you.”

“Unless they benefit both of us,” Martin snapped, “by not involving either of us dying or forgetting each other or going mad.”

“You’re very demanding.”

“Sorry," said Martin, who was not sorry. “Because, because, yeah, I _do_ want the happy little fairy tale ending! The one where Jon and I defeat the big bad monster in the tower and go off and live in a little cottage in the woods, with books and cats and lots of sunlight. And I _know_ we’re not getting it, but dreaming about impossible things is how I’ve lived my entire life, and y—look, the apocalypse isn’t exactly making a great case for the value of acknowledging the reality of the situation.”

“All right, say you get your little fairy tale cottage. Then what?”

“…What?”

“What happens after the end of that story? You’re just mindlessly contented for the rest of your lives?”

“I… ideally, yes.”

“Stories don’t end like that. They don’t end at all. You either die or you continue, and any periods of happy mindless puttering are just interludes. You’re in your little cottage with your cats and books and then, one day, someone leaves a baby in a basket on your doorstep. And that baby has a destiny that you can’t alter or save them from. Or the local village decides, you’ve got too many cats, you must be a witch, and burns your house down. Or maybe you get bored of being around Jon all the time and start going on long walks, then longer walks, then on holiday without him, until one day you just don’t go back, because your little fairy tale cottage feels like a prison.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No, that’s… not going to happen.”

“Why? Because you’re too in love with your boyfriend made of other people’s nightmares to ever think that the happy ending might not actually be real?”

Martin snorted. “Because I’m not that fucking stupid. You’re not the only one from a broken family, y’know.”

A slight murmur of pain distracted them both, and they turned and saw Jon, slumping in the kitchen doorway. Martin knocked over his chair in his haste to keep him from sprawling flat on his face on the lino. “Are you okay?! Did… did you go through?”

“No, Martin.” Jon sat down very slowly, as though his movements pained him. “No, I didn’t. I could have. I wanted… I just wanted to examine the door. I thought if I had to go through, we could… use the rope, I guess? Make sure there was at least a chance of pulling me back. But as I was Looking at it, I felt the Eye… compelling me. It wanted me to break the seal, step over the threshold… but I didn’t.” He hunched over the table, trembling. “And it’s not happy with me.”

“Why didn’t you go, Archivist?”

Jon looked up, his gray-streaked hair tumbling round his face. “You know why.”

“I don’t,” Martin reminded him.

“The two realities don’t always align correctly. Right now, the Web’s keeping the two doors connected, via the seal, but it doesn’t have any influence over the… parallel space. So if I break it…”

“…Oh. Oh god.”

“Yeah.”

“Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? About whose curiosity was really at work here. Or rather, for what purpose.” Annabelle’s little smile was gone now. If anything, she looked… thoughtful. “Disappointed, Archivist?”

“I thought we could use it,” said Jon, more to himself than to Annabelle or Martin. “I thought it could be a new… separate place apart, for the Entities.”

“Technically, it still can be. Objectively, you understand, you have options. You can go through, both of you, see what’s on the other side. But as you’ve surmised, it is a one-way trip, though, so that would only help yourselves, and not even for very long.” She leveled a gaze at Jon. “You know what’ll happen to you, in a world without the Eye.”

“Yes,” said Jon quietly, not looking at Martin. “I have an… idea.”

“You could also try and bring the Powers through, trap them there, sight unseen, but that would be condemning a world you’ve never seen to this exact same endless nightmare. And given enough centuries of people and animals being scared of things, the Fears will just manifest again, in other forms. And then there will be another Archivist. There’s _always_ another Archivist. But it’s an option. Still a one-way trip, though. And you’d be trapped on the other side, with all of them.”

“I suspect that neither of those are options the Web particularly wants me to take.”

“Not really.”

“So why tell me at all?”

“Just laying all my cards out. You like card games, I hear. Besides, I don’t want to push my luck in stringing you along too far.”

“Probably wise,” said Jon grimly. “I’m not exactly powerless here.” She didn’t rise to the bait. “What does the Web _want_ , Annabelle? And please don’t make me ask again. The next time will hurt.”

“…There is no way to halt the Age of Beholding. You can’t just shove all the Dread Powers out of this world and into some other space, not without massive consequences – for this world as well as wherever else you might find to trap them. But the Web can twitch out the threads, unweave what has been woven.”

“You mean… rewind things? _Un_ change the Change?”

“Basically.”

“But what’s in it for the Web? Why would the Mother of Puppets willingly relinquish all of the strings thrumming through reality?”

Annabelle’s smile was sharp and wet. “Maybe she wants another chance at her own apocalypse. Maybe she just preferred the status quo.”

“Or maybe you’re lying,” said Martin bluntly.

“No one gets to lie to the Archivist. Not anymore.”

Annabelle’s eight eyes met Jon’s innumerable invisible ones. Then, “Martin. Would you mind giving Annabelle and I a few minutes?”

“I—what? No! I’m not leaving you alone with her.”

“Martin… trust me.”

“I… fine. Fine! I’ll just… be out back, then!”

Jon watched him shove his hands into his pockets and stalk out the back door.

“All right, Annabelle. No more dancing to your strings. What does the Web need me to do?”

“Just a distraction. The Eye’s focus needs to be directed onto one single point, long enough for it to relinquish its hold on reality. Long enough for us to pull out all the threads that have been woven since you ended the world.”

“You need the Eye to flinch,” Jon realized.

“More or less.”

“Is… is that even possible?”

“There are always possibilities, a tapestry of uncountable choices. We just tell ourselves there’s no other option because the options that are left are too… unpalatable.”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“Not when Jonah was force-feeding you his little invocation. But you had choices before that, and you made them. And you have choices now. The only question left is… what will you do?”

“…I have to end this, Annabelle. I was used to start it. And now I need to use myself to end it. There’s… heh. No other option.”

“Hm. Do you want to die, Archivist?”

“Not… not really? It’s strange, but even with all this horror and pain and suffering and terror… and yes, there’s a part of me that craves it as much as anyone else here… I’ve had all this time with Martin. I haven’t been alone.” Jon knew he was giving her too much, exposing himself dangerously to someone who would know exactly how to twist his vulnerabilities into the perfect noose, but it felt _right_ to tell it all to Annabelle. “I know I won’t survive this, killing Elias, unchanging the world back to the way it was… but I don’t want to die. I never did—that was always my crime, I think, in the eyes of the others. But now I just… I don’t want to leave him alone. Not again.”

“There might be a way back, you know. For him. If he chooses to take it.”

“…And me?”

“You don’t get a choice, Archivist. Not about this.”

“I really wish I thought you were lying,” said Jon softly.

* * *

There was a tree there, in back of the house. Martin wasn’t sure if he was surprised by that or not, after all the statements he’d read and heard. But regardless of how he felt about it, the tree was there, looking healthy and green and altogether too good to be true.

And Martin damn well knew better than to even think of touching any of the apples hanging from its branches. Looking as closely as he dared, he saw that the very leaves were woven of spider silk.

He felt a sudden heat on his back and spun round, and saw a girl made of fire. She had long auburn hair and she looked…

She reminded him of Jon.

Ancient, and too terribly young, and tired… and looking incredibly annoyed, although not at him.

“You, you’re… you’re her, aren’t you? Agnes Montague.”

“Yes… I suppose I still am. And you’re the Archivist’s.”

“I, um. Y-yeah, you could… say that. Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but… aren’t you… dead?”

“Am I not?” She sighed. “I’d hoped I would be, by now. We are very hard to kill completely.”

“‘We’?”

“People like us. People with destinies.” She grimaced, as though the word left a sour taste in her mouth.

“Avatars? Servants of the powers?”

Agnes shrugged. “However you wish to phrase it. They’re only words. Words twist and change so easily. They mean what we wish them to mean.” She looked past him, at the tree, and suddenly every single leaf burst into flames.

The silk burned quickly, and as rapidly as the fire had started, it was gone, leaving the branches and, to Martin’s surprise, the apples, intact.

“Take one,” Agnes said.

“Um. N-no thanks.”

She leveled a look at him and Martin stared back. She was frightening but not… scary? It was probably a mistake to feel sorry for her, but he couldn’t help himself. Out of all the avatars, even Jon, she was the only one who’d really never asked for any of this.

“Which one?” he said at last.

Agnes tipped her head to one side. “That one,” she decided, pointing at a particular fruit that was just out of her own reach, though easy enough for Martin to grasp. He tugged it carefully from its stem; it was beautiful, red and shining. “Don’t eat it,” Agnes advised.

“Wasn’t planning to. But why…?”

“Keep it safe.”

“For what?”

“For the ending, of course. We don’t get happy endings, Wanderer,” she said sadly, oblivious to the anguished realization that washed over Martin like an unforgiving wave. “They’re not for people like us.”

“…People with destinies.”

“Yes. Destinies are terrible things. I wouldn’t wish them on anyone.” A frown passed over Agnes’ candescent face. She glanced back at the house, frowned… and vanished in a wisp of smoke.

It wasn’t until the haze had dissipated that Annabelle emerged from the house, joining Martin beneath the now-bare tree. “Did you have to do that to the tree? It’s been through enough, don’t you think?”

“I… didn’t,” said Martin, still staring at the apple. “It was Agnes.”

That made Annabelle blink all her eyes. “Agnes Montague? Well, that _is_ interesting… I had no idea she was still hanging around.”

Martin took a breath and slipped the apple into his pocket. “Where’s Jon?”

“He’s _fine_ , Mr. Blackwood, no need to be so belligerent. We just had a nice little chat and now he’s talking to his tape recorder.” She looked at Martin until he was forced to look up at her. “So, you don’t listen to his statements?”

“I try not to. There’s a lot about this world that I don’t need to know.”

“And that you don’t need being known, I’d wager. An… interesting standpoint, for a servant of the Eye. A logical one, for a servant of the Lonely. And a very… understandable one, for a servant of the Archivist.”

“That’s—that, it’s not like that!”

“I’m not passing judgment, Mr. Blackwood, just… calling it like I see it.”

“Look, just because I like to do things for Jon to—no, no. None of your damn business anyway.”

“Fair enough. Pity, though, you not listening in. I thought we might have a little chat. Exchange information.”

“You have told me plenty. More than enough.”

“Could tell you more. But instead, why don’t you tell me something, Mr. Blackwood? How about… how you got out of the Lonely?”

“…I remembered who I was, and hung onto it. I remembered Jon, and he found me. But that wasn’t about what he needed, that was about what I needed. Wasn’t… wasn’t just about what Jon needed,” Martin amended. “I didn’t… I wanted to leave, with him. I didn’t want to be alone _without_ him. And I didn’t want him to… to live with the guilt of failing. I still don’t.”

“What about your guilt?”

“…Don’t.”

“You brought it up. You could have stopped all of this before the Archivist even knew what was going on. Hell,” she laughed, “you could have stopped it before he was even out of his coma.”

“I didn’t know what was at stake! If I had—”

“But you didn’t.”

_“Can you imagine? If we’d had this?”_

_“But we didn’t, did we.”_

“You made your choice with the information you had, and it was the wrong choice. For the world, at least. Somehow, Mr. Blackwood, I don’t get the impression that you actually regret it. On a personal level, I mean.”

“N… Why do you keep calling me that?”

“Would you rather I called you by your true name? Your title?”

The sea roared in Martin’s chest, and the fog beckoned invitingly behind his eyes. “No.” Then, before she could get her fangs into him again, he asked the only question that mattered. “Is there a way for Jon to survive the Unchanging?”

“Maybe. What about you?”

“Yes, obviously me!”

“Just checking,” Annabelle said, grinning, and Martin again felt like he was being toyed with. “And… there might be. But I can’t tell you how to go about it. These things are very individual.”

“Wow. Thanks. So helpful of you.”

“You said you didn’t like being manipulated. So this is the best I can do for you. You – and the Archivist – can either die as human beings, or live as monsters.”

“That’s not a choice.”

“It is. It’s just not one you like.”

“…Objectively true. Right.”

“Now you’re getting it.”

Martin turned her words over in his head while Annabelle watched, drinking in his… confusion? Consternation? Whatever he was feeling, she was lapping it up.

“‘Human,’ ‘monster’… ‘avatar’… People make words for the things that they fear, give the unnameable a name in an attempt to steal some of its power. It doesn’t work: the words just make the unknowable more real.”

“But the balance of power still shifts.”

“If you know where to push it.”

“Change the rules,” Martin murmured, as a glimmer of something almost like hope began to warm the cold space in his chest. He didn’t like it, didn’t trust it… but it felt… right.

* * *

As Jon and Martin walked away from the house, through the remains of what was once an Oxford suburb, Martin remembered the apple. He reached into his pocket and pulled it out, his fingers brushing against something made of wood and brass as he did so.

Jon glanced sideways at it in surprise. “Is that… from the tree at the house?”

“Mhmm. She gave it to me.”

“Annabelle?”

“Agnes.” Martin looked up and couldn’t help laughing a little at Jon’s open-mouthed shock. “Yeah, that’s… that’s about how I felt. She told me to keep it safe… no idea what she meant. What do you think? Jon?”

“Sorry, I just… I thought she was dead.”

“Only thought?”

“Mm. All the statements indicated she was dead. The Eye believed she was dead. Even with the odd burning ghost story you took while I was in hiding,” he added, with a lopsided smile. “And the whole extent of human knowledge doesn’t extend beyond the grave.”

 _Then why could I see her? And talk with her? Why could I see something that you can’t?_ The questions welled up in Martin’s throat like a rising tide, almost choking him, but he refused to give them voice. He didn’t, he _didn’t_ want to know, because if he asked, then Jon would have to answer, and once Jon knew then the Eye would know, and Martin…

“D’you believe her?” he asked, stowing the apple away again. “Annabelle, I mean.”

“Honestly, I… I think I have to. She put herself in immense danger to tell us all of that.”

“How?”

“She made herself _vulnerable_. That’s not something a servant of the Web ever does, Martin. Hill Top Road, it’s still a Web domain, but it’s a domain within the Eye’s kingdom. I could have obliterated her. And… she took that risk.”

“Wasn’t _that_ much of a risk. What did she tell us? That you need to get into the Panopticon and what, distract the Eye? So that the Web can unravel this hell realm like an old sweater? Not much of a plan.”

“No. No, the planning is up to us. Well,” Jon amended, “to you.”

“Right,” Martin sighed. “Never were much of a planner, were you… What about the… the scar? Is… is it something we can use?”

“I don’t think so, not without Knowing what’s on the other side. It could be an empty void. It could be a mirror of our own world, before the Change. If it’s just another version of the world that was, but free of the Entities… We’d just be inflicting all of this on an entire planet of fresh meat.”

“And we’d have to go with them.”

“Well. I would. I can’t… god.” Jon made a bitter little noise. “The Eye _wants_ to know what’s behind that door, Martin, and it’s deeply annoyed with me right now for fighting it... but it also doesn’t... care? It didn’t—it just wanted to see what would happen. It wanted my fear.”

“But you’re… it. You’re basically an extension of the Eye.”

“Yes. The only part of it that can still feel fear. I’ll never be free of it now, no matter what we do. Not until I’m dead.”

“Jon… d… Do you want to live?” Martin dug his fingers into his legs, grounding himself. He felt as though he was in danger of flying apart. “I mean, if there was a way for you to survive turning everything back… would you take it?”

“I… maybe? Not… not without you. Not if I wouldn’t remember you. I wouldn’t want that, for either of us.”

“But if you could live, and remember, and have me… would you want to? If it meant… still being the Archivist?”

Jon laughed, softly. “I don’t know how to be anything else, anymore. So… god, Martin, d’you know what I really want? I want to sleep, and eat something you’ve cooked, and-and curl up with you and watch terrible history documentaries and stupid movies. I want some of my life back. I want _our_ life back—the life we never got to have together, since we’re talking about impossible hypotheticals. If the Eye would give me that… just… let me have a normal life sometimes… I’d take it.”

“Even if it meant… you’d still need to feed, Jon.” _And so would I,_ Martin did not dare say aloud. But he didn’t need to. Jon glanced sideways at him and squeezed his hand tightly. “And it’s not as if ethically sourced fear is a thing. Not for the kind of fear the Entities want. But we never really had a chance to figure out… well, any of it. We were too busy fighting someone else’s battles.”

“Yes. Martin, if… if there's a way for you to survive what’s to come… I’d like you to take it. Even, _especially_ if I don’t—”

“No, Jon,” said Martin simply. “I’m not leaving you behind. One way or the other… we’re not getting torn apart.”

Jon looked at him, and Martin could see that everything Jon had ever thought and felt and dreamed and hoped for him was in those tired brown eyes. “Okay. Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Show dialogue from MAG 161: Dwelling, MAG 181: Ignorance.


	12. Patterns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Hill Top Road, Jon and Martin have to acknowledge some uncomfortable truths before they can move any farther.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ohgod, so much talking… Apologies to RQ, I cribbed **a lot** of dialogue from MAG 183 for this chapter. And then changed and twisted it to suit my own nefarious needs. 
> 
> Content warnings for: loads and loads of guilt, brief discussion of self-sacrifice, family abandonment.
> 
> Also: glitchingicarus has put up their amazing art for [Chapter 5](https://glitchingicarus.tumblr.com/post/632160767085592576/jon-followed-her-more-gingerly-he-closed-the) **and** [Chapter 6](https://glitchingicarus.tumblr.com/post/632282495652593664/jon-pulled-out-a-roll-of-bandages-a-sterile)!!! Go flail at them!
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who’s been able to comment and leave kudos so far. ♥ If you’re enjoying this story and think other people would as well, please share it!

What had once been Oxford was long gone behind them, and all that seemed to stretch out in front of them was wasteland, and the tall inescapable silhouette of the Panopticon looming in the distance like a gibbet. “Is it much farther?” asked Martin after some innumerable time. “This… shortcut the Web’s promised?”

“A little farther, yes. The way is… it’s not quite finished being woven. I think… there’s something else we need to do.”

“What?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

“Ah.” 

Martin lapsed back into silence, and Jon did the same. 

They hadn’t spoken much since leaving Hill Top Road. There was too much to think about, too much to try and parse out into something that at least tried to make sense, but the hollow in Martin’s chest was roaring too loudly for productive contemplation.

Finally, he broke the stillness.

“What Annabelle said. That you’re both Watcher and Watched, but that I’m something else… Do you know what she meant?”

Jon made a frustrated noise. “No. And I can’t stop thinking about it, either. It probably has something to do with your contentious relationship with the Lonely, but I’m not entirely sure. I know that the Eye is fond of you, it likes you, but—”

“...Why?”

“Hmm?”

“Why does the Eye like me? Because I worked at the Institute, because I read statements?”

“Yes! I—mostly. And, um... b-because...”

“Because _you_ like me?”

“Er. Possibly. I... think my own emotions towards you have kept you with me, rather than having you transported to your domain the moment the Change happened.” Martin grimaced and looked away. “Martin, d-do you… we should talk about your domain.”

“No. Yes. I-I dunno. I’ve been trying not to think about it. I know, I _know_ there are people there, people suffering, and that I’m… feeding on that suffering… but I’m trying not to focus on it too much. I don’t want to be the one that’s hurting them but I can’t… not.”

“I know,” said Jon softly. 

“Even if you could have killed me, it doesn’t sound like the death of any one avatar will free anybody in these domains. All I can do is… try to end their imprisonment.”

“That’s the hope.”

There was so much pain in Jon’s voice, and Martin understood, in his bones and in his soul and in the gentle roaring hollow of his heart, that it was pain Jon had been wrestling with since the end of the world. He had known it in his mind, of course, known it as an objective fact, but now… now he _felt_ it as never before. There was no one who knew better, that mingling of ferocious hungry joy and hideous, horrible, gnawing guilt. 

And that, even if his death could free the world, there was no one who could free _him_. 

“We’re going to fix this,” said Martin, holding his head high. “We’re going to find a way to undo this, and we’re going to put everyone back where they belong. Including ourselves.”

“Right,” Jon said, smiling in spite of himself, and though the expression didn’t ring true, Martin loved him all the more for trying.

Neither of them brought up the fact that if they survived the Unchanging, either of them, they would still have to feed, and they wouldn’t even have the benefit of distance that the domains brought. Changing things back wouldn't change themselves back. Their gods would be hungry, and they would have to go out and feed their Fears.

Neither of them mentioned it. But they locked eyes and Martin knew and Jon Knew, and speaking the truth aloud wouldn’t change things or make them more palatable. It was simply a truth that they would have to confront in the future, somehow.

If they survived.

“I just... I don’t understand. Why the Observatory? Why is _that_ the domain that I get saddled with? The fear of... of being seen in my most painful moments, the moments when I want to hide and can't? That’s... almost the opposite of... there were so many times in my life when I pleaded for someone to see me, and they just... didn’t. Those people... they’re terrified of something that I spent my whole life yearning for.”

“Fear can be a vindictive thing,” said Jon quietly.

There was nothing Martin could say to that, and to avoid saying anything at all, he shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. The fingers of one hand brushed against the apple; the fingers of the other bumped into the something made of wood and brass… He frowned and drew it out and realized it was the spyglass the strange woman with her hateful eyes had given him at the lighthouse. He studied it, surprised that it wasn’t broken from his fall down the stairs at the… “The people I saw in the Observatory—like, actually in it, not the people... suffering there… The other avatars.”

“The woman at the window and the man in the lamp room?”

“It wasn’t exactly a _lamp_ room, but yeah, them. I didn’t recognize them.”

“No, you’ve never met them before.”

“Do you know who they are?”

Jon nodded. “They were... ‘assigned,’ I suppose, to your domain because of how it was formed.”

“Right, from... from using the powers of the Beholding to destroy one of the Forsaken, you said.”

“Yes. They knew Peter Lukas, but he didn’t know them.”

“His victims? People he sacrificed to the Lonely?”

“Not directly, but... yes, sort of. In a dynastic sense, I suppose you could call it. He was their father.”

Martin stopped dead in his tracks, and Jon stopped as well. “You’re not serious. He… did he know them?”

“He knew of them. They weren’t accidents, if that’s what you mean.”

“So he had a _wife_? A _family_?”

“He had a wife, yes. Though not one he cared for very much. The Lukases put a lot of emphasis on the continuation of their family line, and not even the most devoted worshippers of the Lonely were allowed to shirk that duty.”

“Christ… Peter must’ve _hated_ that.”

“He did,” said Jon grimly.

“And… his children?”

“Followed in their father’s footsteps.”

“Good. Then I don’t have to waste time feeling sorry for them.”

Jon made a noncommittal noise. He studied Martin for a long moment. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“Why did you want to see your domain?”

“I just... this was already happening. It’s happening and I can’t stop it, so I figured, why not lean into it? I don’t want to hurt people or-or feed on them, you know that, but... I was tired of being a burden.”

“You’re not, Martin. You never were.”

Martin snorted. “I was when I started in the Archive.”

“No,” Jon protested, reaching out and taking Martin’s face in his hands. “You were never a burden. I resented you being there, yes, because I didn’t know you. Because Elias insisted that you be there. Maybe he knew the Web wanted you with me, maybe he just wanted us both to feel off our footing and more isolated, but…”

“Jon. It’s okay.”

“The way I treated you was emphatically not okay.”

Closing his eyes for a moment, Martin smiled. “We went over this already, you know. In Scotland. But… thanks. For saying it again.”

Jon’s eyes – not the Archivist’s eyes but Jon’s, hazel and tired and warm – seemed to bore into his soul. “Never a burden,” he murmured fiercely, and brushed his chapped lips over Martin’s. “Especially not now. I would have accepted the fate laid out for me ages ago, if not for you. And if this is what you want…”

“It’s… not exactly what I _want_ , but… it feels like the right decision. It feels like I can actually do something now. No idea what, exactly, but… something.”

“Hm.” Jon rested his forehead against Martin’s. “And… maybe if I fail... this way, you can finish what I start.”

“...I hate that I can’t argue with that.” 

Jon began to pull away but Martin wrapped his arms around the one he loved and held him close, burying his nose in Jon’s tumbled hair. Too soon, they untangled themselves and began to walk again. 

“Can I ask _you_ a question, Jon?” And then, without waiting for a reply. “What happened to my dad?”

Jon blinked, clearly taken aback. “I... in what sense?”

“Gah, sorry. I mean, did... did he just walk out on us? Or was he taken by one of the Fears, too? These things, they seem to like families.”

“They do, yes. Though not in the strictly dynastic sense, it’s... it’s more being drawn to familiar patterns. Familiar tastes, I’m afraid.”

“...Eww.”

“Yeah.”

“So... did one of them get him? One of the Fears?” And he held his breath while Jon Looked into the vast ocean of knowledge behind his eyes.

“No,” said Jon at last. “At the time of the Change, he was alive, and unmarked.”

“So he really did just leave.”

“Yes. I’m sorry, Martin.” Jon hesitated. “There’s... a lot more I could—”

“No. I don’t want to know anything else about him. Not if he was happier without us, not if he started a whole new family somewhere, and _not_ what domain he’s in now.” Martin craned his head back and looked up at the sky, into the cavernous black maw of its pupil. “Y’hear me? I definitely do not want to know!”

“Okay, okay! I’ll shut up.”

“It’s bad enough knowing as much as I do, that I’ve apparently got some kind of _destiny_ and was apparently always going to be an avatar whether I chose it or not—”

“Welcome to my world,” said Jon peevishly. “It’s—‘avatar’ isn’t a _thing_ , Martin. It’s not—it’s just a word. A word used by—” _By me,_ Martin could practically hear him thinking. “—fools like Smirke to try and sort everything into neat little boxes, to reduce the messy spray of human fear into a checklist. Human, avatar, monster, victim.” 

_“ People make words for the things that they fear, give the unnameable a name in an attempt to steal some of its power. It doesn’t work: the words just make the unknowable more real.”_

_“But the balance of power still shifts.”_

“Only now, now there’s a binary. There’s finally a clear dividing line.”

“And this is the side I’ve ended up on,” Martin said softly. “Whatever else I Become, this is the side I’ve chosen…” Then, “What about Daisy? Or Basira?”

“Daisy carved through the domains of others. Basira, well… in a very real way, she was a sufferer in Daisy’s domain. Maybe the only one. Hunting, following… hurting. Now Daisy’s dead… she’s free. Sort of. She’s inherited something of Daisy’s ability to move through the other domains. For now, she’ll feed off what she sees in them. As to whether the Eye ultimately gives her a domain of her own… I don’t know yet.”

Slowly, Martin turned the spyglass over in his fingers. “You didn’t tell her any of that.”

“I didn’t think the metaphysics of her place in the fear ecosystem was something she’d be particularly interested in at that moment.”

Martin huffed softly. “Fair. But you seem very reluctant to tell anyone _any_ of this stuff.”

“I did try, right at the start,” Jon said, his voice very gentle.

“…Right.”

“And… it’s hard, I have so much knowledge but… how do I decide what people want me to share, and what they never want to know?”

“I guess that makes sense… Jon? Where is Basira right now? Is… you said she was moving through other domains.”

“Yes.”

“Is she okay?”

Jon let out a low sigh as his eyes began to glow. “She’s currently moving through… the Void. Hungry shadows drifting in the dark. She’s been there a long time, now, struggling to find the path.”

“But she will.”

“I think so.”

“…And us?”

“…I wish I was as sure about that as you are.”

“I am sure. I have to be sure. It’s not—we don’t always have a say in what happens to us. I know that. Sometimes things… things just happen. And there’s nothing we can do about that. All we can control is what we do with those experiences.”

A familiar sound of hinges creaked where no sound of hinges should be. “That does sound like the sort of thing a petulant poet would say.”

“Hello, Helen,” said Martin wearily.

“And just where have _you_ been?” she demanded, almost pleasantly. “I’ve been looking for you, but you both just vanished.”

“Ah.” Jon looked at her for a moment, first in confusion, then in sudden, almost vicious understanding. “Right. I see.”

“I was _so_ looking forward to catching up after that whole Basira and Daisy thing, but then pfft! You both disappear. I’d be very keen to know how you managed that little trick. Did you find another place like Georgie’s, I wonder? Another—what did you call them? Another dead zone.”

“It caught us by surprise, too,” said Martin. “I mean, w-we actually—” 

But she was looking at him with curiosity in her shattered eyes. “Oh! Well, that explains it. You Lonely lot are harder to track down. So damp and slippery. Anyway, such a shame about Basira and Daisy. I was really rooting for them to make up.”

“Since _when_?” Martin demanded indignantly. “What happened to—I mean, how did you put it? ‘A quick shot to the back of the head, and then back in time for tea’ or whatever?”

“Oh, give over,” she grumbled. “I was obviously just prodding her, trying to make a point. She didn’t want to kill her.”

“What we want doesn’t matter much these days,” said Jon.

Helen made a decidedly rude noise at him. “Oh nonsense. What we want is the _only_ thing that matters these days. And Basira wanted to join Daisy.”

“She made her choice.”

“With _your_ assistance.”

“It was still _her_ choice.”

“What a waste,” Helen sighed.

“No. It wasn’t.”

“Basira is…” Martin swallowed. “She’s going to be okay.”

“Oh, is she?” Helen raised an eyebrow, so high that it actually left her forehead. “Do you want me to tell you what she’s been up to while you were getting acquainted with your domain, Martin? Where she is right now?”

Jon cut her off. “You don’t need to. We already know.”

“‘We’? So you told him? That seems _very_ unlike you, Archivist. Not at all your usual habit of playing things close to the vest…”

“There’s not much we keep from each other, these days,” said Martin, with a grim smile. He didn’t mean it to be intimidating, but nevertheless it made Helen’s face rearrange into something a tiny bit more… respectful. 

“Hmm. Basira does always seem to manage, doesn’t she? It’s impressive, although a little bit… tempting at times.

Martin rolled his eyes. “Look, Helen, what do you even want? You keep turning up like a bad penny, and—honestly, it seems like it’s… it’s just to be a dick!

“Gasp!” said Helen, with a wide grin that literally split her face in half. “I am trying to be _friends_ , Martin. Forever is a long time. And I occasionally like to have some company that isn’t screaming.”

“…What do you even think friendship is?”

“I dunno, do I? The only personhood I have is from someone I ate.”

“You always _said_ you were Helen.”

“I am. I also ate her. It’s very simple, as long as you don’t think about it.”

Martin gritted his teeth. “Look. Listen, I’m getting really sick of all thi—”

“Leave it, Martin,” Jon advised. “She’s just trying to get under your skin.”

“Yeah? Well, she’s really good at it!”

The Distortion looked positively flattered. “Aww. Thanks, sweetie. But to be honest, I’m mainly just here to see how your apocalypse cancellation plans are getting on. I need to know what sort of time table I’m looking at.”

“Time doesn’t exist anymore,” said Jon flatly. 

“I keep thinking that. And then it catches up with me.”

“Right. Well.” Jon stopped and sat down on his pack, a recorder abruptly in his hand. “If you’ll excuse me… The sooner we actually _get_ to the Panopticon, the sooner you’ll be able to update your schedule.”

“Point taken!” Helen sang out, swinging open her door. “Well, have fun telling the Eye all about whatever it thinks is interesting here… can’t see anything worth nattering on about, myself. And do try not to vanish again. I hate not being able to keep tabs on you two lovebirds.”

“I’m sure you do.” 

She waved sharp fingers at them. “Ciao!”

Martin watched as the yellow door closed and folded in on itself until it was very much not there. “She’s scared of you.”

Jon didn’t look up from the recorder. “She’s scared of both of us now.”

“…I don’t know how to feel about that. Are you going to take a statement? Is there something here the Eye wants?”

“No, I just wanted Helen to go away.”

“Ah.” Martin grinned, but Jon made no move to rise.

“I thought… maybe I’d try and talk through what happened at the house. I got enough from the scar when we were there to give the Eye a statement, but it wasn’t very clear. I thought maybe going over it again would make it make more sense…” Slowly, Jon shook his head. “But I don’t think it’s going to do any good.” He tried to turn the recorder off, but the button refused to cooperate. “Bloody thing…”

“Well—well tell _me_ , then.”

Jon frowned at Martin. “Are you sure? You usually prefer not to hear these.”

“I know, I know, but… I think I should probably start. I mean, there won’t be many more, and I don’t think I can afford to miss out on any other information.” 

“Okay.” A thin hand reached for Martin’s, only briefly, but gratefully. “I think... honestly, I’m not sure. I still... it all still feels a little scrambled. Everything that happened. There was a lot going on and... I mean, yes, we were allowed inside by virtue of our unique place in this new world but it’s still a Web domain. Maybe if Annabelle hadn't been there, I could’ve known more.”

“Or maybe you would have ripped off the scab and just... jumped.”

“Meaning that the Web might have actually saved my life.”

“Oh... I don’t like that. …It sounds… uncharacteristic.”

“Martin, you can’t ascribe known characteristics to things that aren’t even supposed to exist in our universe—” 

“I know, I just… I mean, it seems badly constructed. Like… like a weird loose end. Just… letting it alone, like that, after the Eye and the Web both pushed you to try and examine it.”

“Yes… I suppose it does, a bit. But the Web didn’t actually want me to mess around with the scar, and the Eye… maybe it wanted to know just enough to decide if the scar, the doorway between worlds, could actually be a danger to it? I don’t know, Martin.” Jon pinched the bridge of his nose and then shoved the tape recorder violently into his bag. “So much knowledge and no fucking context. No connections. Useless.”

“So let’s _make_ some connections,” Martin said. “We need a plan. What can we actually _do_ with what you know? In theory?”

“In theory... I... I can see the scar now. Even this far away from the house, we're not away from... we're not out of the range...” Jon huffed in frustration, that his words were inadequate to his thoughts and always had been and always would be. “Whatever barrier the Web has created around this domain, we’re still within it. I can see inside the house, for now. It won’t last. But I can see inside the house, and Annabelle is gone. She’s gone back to wherever she’s been hiding.”

“So you can see the scar.”

“I can see the scab over the scar. And... if I push... yes.” His voice changed, going hoarse with horrified understanding. “Oh god... now I can see it. Oh...” He began to tremble.

“Jon?”

“Oh, I’m... I’m really glad this didn’t happen when I was standing right there.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know. I can’t see that far into it. Obviously, there is another world on the other side, a world like ours—that’s how Anya Villette came through—but it’s not... It’s like I said at the house, they’re not naturally synced up. _Right now_ this side exits on the other side of Hill Top Road, but if I had broken the seal and gone through while I was in the house, it would just... be...” The Archivist’s breathing came quick and fast and scared.

“Jon.”

“It would just be void. Empty black nothingness.”

“Okay. So... thinking practically... we _could_ send the Entities through. The Fears, if we needed to. There’s nothing actually stopping us.”

“Possibly. I don’t know how. Maybe if I...” His face twisted in bitter resignation. “Led them there. Like the fucking Pied Piper.”

“Okay. Okay, Jon, we’ll… that’ll just be our fallback plan, then.” Martin felt himself growing faint and distant and had to physically wrench himself back to his own body. “Plan Z. Way down the list.”

“It’d better be.”

Martin looked at him sharply. There was a note of something in Jon’s voice, a mix of Beholding static and dull horror that… “We don’t keep things from each other anymore, Jon. I’m asking you to tell me: _Do_ you know how you would send the Fears through to the other space?”

“Yes. I can’t tell you how, but… yes.”

“‘Can’t’? Or… won’t?”

“Can’t bring myself to say it aloud. Not yet.” Jon closed his eyes, and Martin could see tears trembling on his lashes. “But it’s… a viable last resort.”

“…Promise me you’ll tell me what it is before it becomes _the_ last resort.”

“I promise.”

“Then I promise I won’t push it.”

Jon swallowed, and forced a smile onto his face. “Thank you.” Then the static rose suddenly, almost deafeningly. “Ah.”

“What, what is it?”

“The way to the Web’s path is clear now.”

“…How?”

“We did what we needed to do.” He took the hand he was offered and allowed Martin to pull him to his feet. “It’s not far.”


	13. Contingency Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Web's offered Jon and Martin a shortcut to London. Taking it is probably unwise... but they have a quest to finish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I nicked one line of dialogue from MAG 183: Monument for this chapter, but otherwise we are finally, at last, firmly in AU territory and I ain't lookin' back. 
> 
> Content warnings for: disorientation, mention of ants, information overload, implications of future self-sacrifice, End-adjacent misuse of skin.
> 
> [Glitchingicarus's illustration for chapter 7! Mahtiiiiiiiiin!!!](https://glitchingicarus.tumblr.com/post/632717272088281088/basira-frowned-and-looked-and-her-frown)
> 
> As always, thank you so much to everyone who’s left comments and kudos. I love hearing from you. ♥

They talked, relentlessly, incessantly, as they approached the Spider’s doorway, about what they could do, about possibilities and counter-possibilities and inevitabilities. The Web needed a distraction to unweave the threads from the tapestry that now comprised their world – but what could capture the gaze of the Eye so completely that it would be unaware of what the Mother of Puppets was doing?

“And you’re sure that snapping Elias’s neck wouldn’t be enough?”

“Unfortunately not,” said Jon, almost primly.

Martin sighed. “Pity. Not gonna stop me doing it, if I get the chance, but…”

“Have you always been this bloodthirsty and I just never noticed before?”

“Hey, okay, don’t do that holier-than-thou bullshit with me. I know you want him ended as much as I do!”

“Yes, yes, yes… Although… honestly, I’m not sure if it’s something I _want_ or if it’s just… inescapable, at this point.”

“…We’re _going_ to think of something. Something that doesn’t involve us dragging the Fears into an alternate dimension.”

“If it comes to that, Martin, I’m going alone.”

“Like hell you are,” said Martin amiably. “Besides, it’s not like _I’ll_ be able to survive in a world without the Lonely, any more than you could without… Jon?” Martin stopped. “That’s how this works, right?”

“For me, yes. For most avatars.”

“But not for me?”

Reluctantly, Jon shook his head. “Not yet. You’ve been Marked by both, _and_ claimed by both the Eye and the Lonely, but you haven’t, well, pledged yourself to either of them. Not really. You’ve acknowledged that you’re changing, but—”

“But I haven’t really committed myself, is that it?” There was a determined set to Martin’s jaw that Jon found distracting in deeply contradictory ways. “I didn’t realize it made that much of a difference. Actually choosing it.”

“It’s not—not a _choice_ , not exactly. I mean… there’s no good choices in any of this. We all just… I can’t even say make the best of a bad situation.”

“The least-awful, then. How’d you put it? ‘All we can do is try to control what we do with the horrible things that happen to us.’”

“Yes. You explicitly rejected the domain that was crafted for you and you keep refusing what both of the Fears claiming you are offering—the knowledge, the power. Right now, you’re protected, but if the Unchanging works... well, you’ll have to make a choice. The same one that Daisy tried to make.”

“To die as a human or live as a monster... I notice you don’t include yourself in that.”

“I can’t.”

“You tried, Jon. …You did.”

“I tried not to hurt anybody, yes. But I never really tried to stop Becoming. I hated it. I still hate it. But once I understood… I accepted that it was inevitable. Some things just are.” Jon took a fresh grip on the strap of his backpack and smiled wanly. “But only as a last resort. Not as a distraction.”

“Right.” Martin took a deep breath. “Right. Back to planning, then.”

* * *

They stopped automatically when they saw it. It was the only sane response to seeing what was, as Jon explained, yet another tear in the fabric of space and time. “But smaller. Less drastic, and far more stable than the one at Hill Top Road,” he added. “This one will close as soon as we’re through.”

“That doesn’t make me feel super-confident about just walking into it,” said Martin, his voice ratcheting higher with every word. “It can’t see through it, I mean… it’s not even mist or anything, it’s just _blank._ ”

“Trust a Fear god to give us the most terrifying helping hand possible.” Jon’s eyes were still glowing, as he examined the Web-woven passage. “But it’ll get us where we need to go – London. Within reach of the Institute, and Jonah.”

They continued staring at it, neither one ready to take the first step.

“I don’t like this,” said Martin finally. “It feels… okay, this is going to sound daft, given _everything else_ , but it feels _weird_ , Jon.”

“I think we can allow it to be weird, under the circumstances.”

“I mean I don’t trust it.”

“I know. I don’t really trust it, either.” Jon narrowed his eyes, trying to Know anything else about the shortcut, but all he got for his troubles was a lot of white noise and a bit of vertigo.

“What happens if we don’t take it? If we just… go round and keep walking?”

“We’ll just keep walking. We’ll eventually reach what used to be London, but it will take longer. And we’ll have to keep passing through various domains, and… well, they’re just going to get worse from here on out.”

“I would… not like that.”

“No.”

“Ugh. Right, okay.”

“So… we go through?”

“I’m getting the rope back out, first.”

Jon watched in quiet amusement as Martin tied them together by the waist. “This isn’t strictly necessary, you know. We’re not in danger.”

“Maybe not,” said Martin, “but it makes me feel better.” And he added another knot, just to drive home his point.

“Right, yes, as you like,” Jon agreed, looking at him fondly until Martin blushed. He was still frighteningly pale and faded from in his time in the Observatory, and Jon knew full well that his own attempts to loosen the Lonely’s hold on him had been fruitless (if the sound he heard in Martin’s chest whenever they hugged was any indication), so the now-rare moments when he blushed were _very_ noticeable.

“Look, it’s… it feels like the Web likes me too, y’know? And I don’t… I just don’t want to risk us getting separated in there.”

“We won’t be inside long,” Jon promised. “It’s a portal, not a tunnel. A doorway.”

“Yes, because we have _so_ many reasons to trust spooky doorways.”

“…Granted. But the Web doesn’t want to separate us. Annabelle said—”

“Yeah, I know what Annabelle said, Jon. But what about you? Is this something you Know? Or is it something that you _feel_? Because… that makes a difference.”

“It does make a difference. But it’s… it’s something I understand.” He couldn’t explain how. There wasn’t language, wasn’t a _function_ of language for the basic, pure level of understanding Jon was working from. “If the Web really wants the Unchanging… it won’t try to separate us.”

“Because you just can’t do it without me,” Martin teased, “is that it?”

“Yes,” said Jon, simply and warmly.

“Oh I, um. …Hm.” Martin tested the knots one last time. “Hope it knows what’s good for it, then.”

Jon grasped his hand firmly, and together, they walked towards the blank space in reality.

* * *

**[tape clicks on]**

“Shit shit shit—”

“We’re through, Martin, it’s okay, we’re through!”

“You said it was just a _doorway_!”

“It _was_.”

“That! Was not! A doorway! That was—a—fucking—cave full of _ants_ —I can still feel them—”

“They weren’t real, Martin, I promise. You’re—here, c’mere. Look. Nice picturesque destroyed stone staircase, positively poetic. Let’s just have a sit-down and-and regroup, okay? C-careful, careful of the rope.”

Sounds of bags and fabric, shifting and rustling.

Some minutes of silence.

“Any better?”

“A bit, yeah, just… what _was_ that, Jon?”

“I’m not…” Sounds of static rising. “Parallel timelines. Other apocalypses where we made different choices… ended up in different places. But it’s okay now. I’ve got you, Martin. I’m—”

“We’re through?”

“We’re through. Look.”

“…Oh, bugger off!”

“Wha—?”

“N-no, what even _is_ that? It’s like Escher ate a bad cathedral and threw up everywhere.”

“It’s the Institute—well. What’s become of the Institute. The Institute and the Archives and the Panopticon, all twisted together.”

“It’s so close… Christ… it’s almost blotting out the sky… What’s that at the top? It looks like… glass?”

“The Panopticon’s watchtower, where Jonah sat when he attempted the Watcher’s Crown for the first time.”

“Is he there now?”

Static rising again.

“I… maybe? I’m having some trouble f-focusing, right now. I don’t _think_ he can see us yet, we—we still have some protection, out here in the wastes of London, on the very edge of the Eye’s domain. Once we cross that invisible border line, there’s no going back… oh… _ah_.”

Static, almost unbearably loud.

“Jon? What’s—whoa! Okay, okay, just—put your head down. Just breathe.”

Sounds of the Archivist in pain.

“Jon? Jon, can you hear me? Squeeze my hand if you—ow, okay, yep! Can—can you tell me what’s happening?”

“The Eye’s very happy to see me, apparently. We… we surprised it by just showing up. It’s… ungh… excited and… it’s pretty much info-dumping at me.”

“Ah. And I’m guessing it’s a lot less cute than when you do that to me.”

“My head feels like it’s going split open… Wait, you think it’s cute?”

“Listening to you babble about something you’re interested in? Uh, _duh_ , Jon.”

“Nngh… M-martin, your spyglass. Can you use it to look up at the watchtower?”

“Why?”

“I can’t See inside it. I need to know if he’s even there.”

“Won’t he notice, if I do that? If he hasn’t noticed us already.”

“Please just look.”

A sigh. “Fine, okay.” The sound of metal on wood. “No, I don’t—wait. Yes.”

“You see him? Not just someone, but _him_?”

“I can definitely see Elias—Jonah. He’s… he doesn’t look any different.”

“What’s he doing?”

“Nothing. He’s just looking out the windows… moving slowly from window to window, around the room. He’s… Jon, it doesn’t look like he can see us.”

“You’re sure?”

“Not _sure_ , but… I’m looking directly at him. He’s gazing out in our direction and I have this thing pointed at his stupid face and… d’you know, he looks scared.”

“I can’t say that I blame him.”

“…I really don’t think he can see us. Or… hell, I dunno. Maybe I’m just too used to being watched to really notice. Or maybe he can’t See anymore. I mean, the Eye clearly likes you better than him, these days.”

“Oh. … _Oh!_ Martin!”

“What, what is it?”

“I know what I need to do.”

**[tape clicks off]**

* * *

Martin listened without interrupting, but by the time Jon had finished explaining what he knew, what he felt in every fibre of his strange being that he needed to do, Martin looked… less than enthusiastic. “Can… can you even do that?”

“Yes,” said Jon firmly, “I can.”

“And… will it work?”

“It will be _distracting_ , which is all we can hope for.” Jon felt his heart beginning to pound with excitement, and there was a weird giddy laughter bubbling at the base of his throat. In any other situation, if he were still human – if he was any other avatar – this would be a terrible idea. It was still a terrible idea. But it would work. “The last thing now is to go inside and get up to the watchtower.”

“J—okay, just… will you be okay?”

Jon smiled, and watched Martin’s heart break. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” He stretched up on his toes and kissed Martin’s cheek, and then buried his face in Martin’s jumper. He felt thick arms come up to hold him tightly, and they stayed that way for a long time.

Not long enough. Never long enough.

“Right… right, now. Do you still have the blindfold? The one Oliver Banks gave you?”

“‘Gave’ isn’t really accurate, but…” Martin fished the long pale strip out of his knapsack. “Yeah, still got it.”

“You’re a vicious pedant and I love you. You’re... going to need to put that on.”

“…I’m going to regret asking, but—”

“There are things in the Panopticon you don’t want to see, don’t need to see. Horrors that... Martin, if this is going to work, I’m going to need you right up to the end.”

“…You don’t think I can handle it. After everything else we’ve—you don’t always have to protect me, Jon.”

“I’m not trying to protect you, I am telling you flat-out that if this is going to have a chance of working, I need you to go in blind.”

_“Why.”_

“Because this is _the_ domain of the Eye and _your_ eyes need to be covered.”

“I can keep things from the Eye now, remember? We proved that, remember, the harmonica! And Jonah couldn’t see us!”

“We proved that you can keep things from _me_. Something the Eye doesn’t actually like – but it’s fond of both of us, and it-it doesn’t want to alienate you by forcing me to Know things without your permission. But if it starts to think you’re a threat…”

“Right.” Martin looked at the blindfold with deep distaste. “It’s human skin, isn’t it.”

“I am afraid so.”

“…Who is—who _was_ it?”

“It’s not… it’s no one you know.”

“Not what I asked, Jon.”

“That’s not what I—it’s hard to explain, to… to conceptualize. It’s not from any one person. It’s… a blend. A compendium of… too many people to name. It might have material from everyone in Oliver Banks’s domain.”

“Why, though? What is the point of me putting this unspeakably gross thing on my face _again_?”

“Because the Eye can’t see beyond death, Martin. Look, once we actually get to Jonah, you can take it off, we’ll be safe then.”

“That seems… even more unlikely than the thing you just said about the blindfold. Can’t he—can’t he hurt us?”

“No, Martin. He can’t hurt anyone.” Jon took the blindfold. Martin bent down and Jon covered his eyes, tying the strip firmly around Martin’s faded curls. “And… here we go.”


	14. The King

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a king in the tower, and it isn't Jonah Magnus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time to fuck some shit up. 
> 
> Content warnings for: Mentions of crushing & dizziness; gaslighting, self-sacrifice, possession, smiting, misuse of Beholding powers, world ending (again).
> 
> Glitchingicarus's [illustration for chapter 8](https://glitchingicarus.tumblr.com/post/633272233668886528/they-kept-trudging-jon-would-lead-for-a-little) is downright incredible and I am in awe. 
> 
> Thank you as always for reading, and for kudos and comments. ♥

**[tape clicks on]**

There is nothing left of the Magnus Institute. There is only the Archives.

Records upon records, book after book, pages and pages, and the people who were still in the building when the Change took hold became, eventually, buried beneath it. Beneath all the fear and dread that the Archivist has seen and related back to the Eye.

People the Archivist and his wandering companion once knew, Rosie and Sonia and Diana and all the others… this is their duty now. This is their eternity: forced to transcribe and relieve all the terrors of the ruined world as they write, page after page after page in ink that is not ink, until their fingers bleed, and then they write with their own blood, and the pages pile up and pile up, until the piles topple over, and crush them.

And, rising from the torn heart of the old prison upon whose bones the graceful Georgian shrine to Beholding was constructed, the watchtower of the Panopticon. Inside it stands a man, and he is afraid. He looks out upon the world and he sees nothing but destruction. He rejoices – this is what he wanted, what he worked for – and yet… and yet.

He has always been afraid, of his own smallness, his own fundamental unimportance. So he labored to correct those things, what he saw in his youthful drive for self-improvement as the natural animal defaults of his character. Fixing those flaws had meant sacrifices, of course, but that was nothing against the pursuit of knowledge – to watch, to listen, to observe, to See and Know. Against the pursuit of power and immortality and the ultimate goal of being a king in his chosen god’s kingdom.

He has what he wanted, what he coveted and craved. So many others whom he had known and perhaps even liked, had laboured and struggled and manipulated and murdered just as he had. And yet he had prevailed. He was _alive_ , and he was safe, while the world outside screamed.

It is right for him to still be afraid. Surely it is right. Even a king ought to retain that holy terror of the god who had so blessed him. And with so much fear in the world now, perhaps that is the greatest gift he can hope for: to keep his own fears for himself.

So he moves from window to window in his high tower, atop and utterly apart from the greatest repository of dread the world has ever known, basking in all that he can see and no more… slowly starving to death. Slowly… devouring himself.

I… _See_ you, Jonah Magnus.

**[tape clicks off]**

* * *

Jon let out a low, pained sigh. “I’m sorry you had to hear that,” he muttered to Martin, who – blinded and roped to him – had been unable to distance himself. There was the sound of a zipper as Jon stowed the tape recorder away. “I’m… I’m sorry.”

They were sitting on the floor of what had been the Institute’s foyer, with Jon’s back pressed flush against Martin’s side, and Martin could feel the looming presence of the papers he had spoken of. Paper full of terror and blood. The sound of Jon’s voice as he’d recorded this final statement had hummed through Martin, filling him with a curious sense of anticipation, almost of excitement—

The words themselves, though…

“Can we do anything, Jon?” he asked, tears streaming down his cheeks. “They’re… they’re our friends.”

“You mean, can we help them? Not really.”

“You have your lighter. We—we could—”

“We could _what_ , Martin?”

“…We could finish what Gertrude started.”

He heard a rustling of clothing, and then a small metallic flick of a Zippo lighter opening. “We could. In theory. Paper burns quickly, and there is… a _lot_ of paper here. We could burn the whole place down, and everyone in it. Everyone except the man at the top.”

“Maybe that’s why the Web sent you the lighter in the first place! As-as a fallback!”

“No,” said Jon sadly. “Not as a fallback. As a reminder of futility.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Setting fire to this place won’t accomplish anything. It would just turn it into an inferno. Everyone trapped here will just find themselves in a domain of the End. The Corpse Roots or the Body Farm. Or maybe the Desolation would get them first. But it won’t destroy the domain. It wouldn’t destroy the Archive. I _am_ the Archive.

“And the only way to end me is up in the watchtower.”

The sea roiling in Martin’s chest roared like a hurricane, almost too loud to hear over. Jon’s hand on his face called him back. “It’s a long way up… You ready?”

“No,” said Martin. “But… lead the way.”

* * *

In the world that was, the Magnus Institute had not been an especially tall building, though it had sometimes felt like one, as any structure without elevators tended to, for the person who had to climb from the Archives in the cellar to the director’s office on the second floor with a boxful of documents. And the old prison that had formed the institute’s foundations had stretched out, rather than up.

Except for the watchtower, which had loomed over all, and still did.

“It’s… Jon?”

“I’m here.”

“It’s—it _is_ the Panopticon, right It’s not the Observatory?”

“It’s not the Observatory.”

“I can hear the sea…”

“I can’t,” said Jon sadly. “It’s not for me.”

The Lonely had never been for him. Strange, that, considering how awkward and isolated he’d felt for most of his life. But he’d always had people to care about, even if they’d tended to come and go without much notice of him. He cared so easily… he loved so easily, almost like breathing… and he’d never needed anyone to return the feeling, in order to make life seem worth the effort.

Although, being needed and wanted and loved in return… was a very sweet thing.

“J-jon? Jon, there’s… I’m dizzy.”

The Archivist halted. “We can stop for a while.” He helped Martin to sit down on one of the steps that was neither wood nor stone, and then chose a step for himself.

“What’s it like?” Martin asked.

“Dark,” said Jon, with a bit of a laugh. “There isn’t much to see, I’m afraid. I Know the way—I mean, the way is Up. And I can See where we’re going. But it’s… dark.”

“And there’s nothing… y’know, lurking?”

“Not this time. Nothing’s hiding in the shadows for us. All that we have to concern ourselves with is… up there.”

“And once that’s over with… we’ll be done.”

“Yes,” said Jon softly. “All… all done.”

“So… What should we do if we make it back?”

Jon snorted. “Sleep. You?”

“Go to uni.”

“Get a cat.”

“Get married.”

“Oh really, to whom?”

“Eh, dunno,” said Martin, shrugging—awkwardly, since his head was currently pillowed on Jon’s thigh. “No one’s coming to mind.”

Unseen by the one he loved, Jon ran his fingers through Martin’s hair, and his smile was soft and sad. “What will you study? At university?”

“Oh! Um… I think maybe… library sciences… I mean, I worked in the Institute’s library for so long, and I think I was good at it…”

“You were,” said Jon.

“So… yeah, maybe I’d do that. And after… maybe work at a children's library somewhere. Or,” Martin continued, a bit more self-consciously, “or else I’d do a Lit degree. Y’know, improve my poetry.”

“You mean become even more of a snob,” Jon chuckled, bending over to press a kiss into Martin’s curls. Then he gritted his teeth against a hiss of pain.

“You okay? You keep making little ‘ouchie’ noises.”

“…Seriously? ‘Ouchie’ noises?”

“I’m sorry my descriptive powers aren’t at their best, now are you okay? You sound like you’re in pain.”

“Yes, I’m… mostly okay.”

“Still getting overloaded?”

“Yeah. The Eye is… it’s happy we’re here, but it’s confused as hell. Because we shouldn’t be here yet. We… we skipped over a lot.”

“You changed the rules.”

“Mm. And I’m not done yet.”

“Whatever happens, Jon, I won’t leave.”

“It could be very... viscerally unpleasant. You could end up seeing me—”

“I know. But I’m not leaving you to face this alone. Jon. I understand, okay? I _understand_. This is how things are now, and you are... you. You’re just you, and I know what you need to do, and… I love you.”

Jon smiled and drifted his fingertips over Martin’s cheek. “I love you, too.”

Then he sighed. “Come on.”

“Right. More steps.”

“So many more steps.”

* * *

Finally, after so long a time that the Archivist had stopped Knowing because not even his mind could hold onto the knowledge, the stairs ended, and they ended at a door.

“Can we get in?” asked Martin, his voice low and eager. “Is it locked?”

Jon Looked at the door with every single eye he possessed. In the pitch-blackness, he could See, and his eyes cast a light of their own. It was an old-fashioned wooded door of stout slabs and black wrought-iron bands and hinges, with a simple handle and latch. “No, it’s not locked. But he’s never stepped through it.”

“Is… is he trapped in there?”

“Yes… yes, in a manner of speaking.”

“Even though he’s ‘king of a ruined kingdom’ or whatever?”

“He thinks he is.” Jon took a deep breath to steady himself, stretched up on his toes and removed Martin’s blindfold. “Ready?”

Martin’s eyes looked back at him, glowing in the dim light of the stairwell, as pale and angry as wave caps. “Yes. Let’s end this, Jon.”

Jon grasped the handle and, before he could second-guess himself and before the Eye could talk him out of it, he pushed open the door.

The interior of the watchtower of the old Millbank Prison looked much the same as it did when it had been buried under untold feet of rubble and modern building, except that now, the fourteen windows looked out not onto a ruined penitentiary filled with long-disintegrated corpses, but onto a ruined world still very much full of the living.

In the chair in the center sat the same desiccated corpse, still suspended in the very moment of what should have been its death.

And behind the chair, at the window, the familiar figure of Elias Bouchard, who had whirled round at their sudden entrance and who was now staring at them in utter shock, his wrong eyes brimming with mingled delight and terror.

Jon met his tormentor’s astonished gaze squarely. “Hello, Jonah.”

* * *

“It wasn’t locked.”

Jonah blinked. Whatever he might have been expecting from his visitors, that plainly wasn’t it. “…I… I beg your pardon?”

“The door. It wasn’t locked.”

“Sorry to barge in,” Martin added, cold as a winter sea but polite to the last.

“Ah. Of course. Not at all,” said Jonah, regaining his composure and offering them a smooth smile. “But why should it be locked? _I_ am not a prisoner here.”

It was the same voice that Jon had known before the Change, but now there was the barest hint of an accent, a slight cultured burr. Apparently, it had been too long since he’d had to perform for someone, and a little of the original Jonah Magnus was leaking through the mask.

“Aren’t you?” Jon said. “A prisoner? I mean, otherwise, you’d have been out there, surely. Reveling in all that dread that you brought about—”

“That _you_ brought about, Archivist,” Jonah replied, with a hint of the old cruel sneer. “Or has your time out there made you forget what you did?”

“We haven’t forgotten _anything_.” Martin loomed behind Jon like a shadow in negative, tall and bleached. “Not what we’ve done, and not what you’ve done.”

Jonah’s head jerked up, and he stared at Martin, badly started, as if he’d only just noticed Martin was still there, despite him having spoken when they first entered. “Good lord,” he murmured, blinking rapidly. “You’re…”

“Yeah, bit different. No thanks to you and Peter Lukas.”

Jonah swallowed. He smoothed a hand over his steel-gray hair and straightened his necktie, now somewhat limp from having been through the end of the world. “This is hardly an appropriate greeting between old colleagues, surely. I’m… honestly glad to see both of you.”

Jon raised his eyebrows. “Really?”

“Yes! Jon, I genuinely thought that the ritual would kill you, and Martin—it’s obvious you’ve been to your domain and… somehow, you managed not to succumb to it.” Jonah smiled. “Congratulations. I’m very proud of you both.”

“Oh, give over,” Martin snorted. “We know this wasn’t part of your plan, Jonah. You had no idea if we were alive or dead and you damned well didn’t know we were coming to pay you a visit.”

“I most certainly did,” Jonah snapped back. “Do you really think there’s anything in this new world that you can keep from me? You’re neither of you _that_ powerful. Not even the Archivist.”

Jon laughed softly.

Jonah was already at the farthest point away from them, across the circular room. There was nowhere for him to go, if they should choose to advance. But when Jon laughed, they watched Jonah go rigid, and look for an escape.

“Are you so sure of that, Jonah? _Are you **really** so sure?_”

“Right, I think we’re done, Archivist,” said Jonah Magnus dismissively, turning away and gazing a window. “You can go.”

“I can, yes. I can go anywhere I please, and See and Know all that the world has to offer. But it should have been yours.” Jon struggled to draw air into his chest, he was so overcome with fury. “You were right about my role in bringing about the Watcher’s Crown… but you were wrong about who would be the one to wear that crown. You ought to have spent two hundred years Marking _yourself_ , absorbing all the fears of humanity for the Beholding. Instead, you’re stuck in here, blind, angry and _scared_.”

“You could hardly blame me for utilizing the tools I was given. When the Web sent me you—”

“Oh yes, the Web did send me to you,” Jon said, eyes cold and glowing. Without realizing it, Jonah was compelled to turn back, to face him. “Because it wanted you to _fail_. It gave me to you as your sacrifice because it knew I was already so consumed with fear that my only driving desire wasn’t for knowledge, but to keep others safe. Your precious Archivist would rather die than be king of this ruined world.

“But that’s what you made me. Because you don’t rule here, Jonah.

“I do.”

Jonah’s stolen face twisted into a smile. “Getting delusions above your station, I see.”

“Am I? Do you know what it’s like out there, Jonah? Of course, you-you must know—after all, the Eye gave you a _gift_.”

Jon waited, but Jonah had nothing to say to him.

“Was it a gift? Or was it a loan? A piece of equipment, an ability to be used towards a certain end? The wrong end, as it turned out. You can’t see anymore, no farther than a human’s eyes will permit—the gift has deserted you. The Eye took it back.”

“I—no. Your trip from Scotland has warped you in utterly useless ways. Look at you, skinny and filthy. Such a shame, but you always were a nervous, paranoid little man, weren’t you, Jon?” Jonah waved a hand at the door. “Why don’t you go find a statement or two to steady yourself with? You do sound a bit… oh, what’s the word… hangry? And there’s obviously plenty of food outside…”

“Oh yes, plenty. A king’s banquet, in fact. Why don’t you come with me?” Jon suggested. “As king, after all… it’s only right.”

“I’m fine right here, thanks. Enjoy your meal, Archivist.”

“So you can enjoy it through me?”

Jonah’s smug self-satisfaction dropped away like snow melting off a newly-discovered skull. “What?”

“You got exactly what you asked for,” Jon intoned, his eyes pinning Jonah to the spot. “Most of all, you wanted to not suffer in the world of another’s god. And you got what you wanted: you’re free of all the domains of all the powers… including the Eye’s. You _can’t_ feed on the fear directly, not even the fear of the people still trapped below in the Archives. Everything that is sustaining you comes through _me_ , as I’m relating it to the Eye.”

Jonah began to tremble, though with rage or with fear, Jon didn’t care.

“So you’re safe, up here in your watchtower. You’re immortal and you’re fed, but there’s no joy in the fear that’s sustaining you. It’s—it’s muddled and indistinct. Like a prisoner’s gruel.”

“No!” Jonah reached out with his hands, as though trying to tear free of the force of Jon’s gaze. “No, this is what I worked for, this is what I wanted! That—you—that makes no _sense!_ ”

“Makes sense to me,” said Martin, with a nonchalant shrug. “As much as anything here makes sense anymore. Jon _Sees_. And Knows. And Records. He’s not just a record of fear, he _is_ fear. He has the entirety of the human fear response experience. You’ve got none of that. You’re just an onlooker. You watch, you listen, but that’s all you do.

“That’s why the Eye did this, dragged Jon across the wasteland and across all of the domains. It wanted that firsthand experience… but it wanted _Jon_ to have that, too. It wanted him to experience everything and bring it here, so that he can rule in your place.”

Jonah’s throat worked as he tried in vain to swallow. “No. No, this was all _my_ doing.”

“So was Jon,” Martin replied, coldly and quietly vicious. “You were so desperate not to be a victim of the devastation you caused, you didn’t even realize you were creating your own replacement. Hear that, Jonah? You’re _expendable_.”

The horrible word lingered in the air between the four of them: between Jon and Martin, between the Jonah that was and the Jonah that had been.

And then Jonah laughed.

“Oh… Martin. Poor, poor Martin. You’re almost as bad as he is. A real pair, the two of you. The rope is a nice touch, by the way. I suppose that’s to keep Martin from straying too far from the path? I can’t say I’m surprised; I did warn you to take care of him, Jon. You remember? And look at him now. Carrying the Lonely around like that. A far worse fate than having to take my place as the heart of the Institute. A pity. You should have let him do as Peter asked.” Jonah’s smile was twisted and desperate. “But then, that’s the problem with love. It ruins the focus. Makes a person weak. Short-sighted. Easy to use, and to discard.

“But there’s still time for you to learn that, I’m sure. To attain your true, intended power. You won’t be able to hang onto him for much longer. After all, he’s already starting to…” Jonah paused, then smiled. “Wander.”

Martin made no motion, didn’t even consciously think of moving or speaking, but something in his chest shifted and he felt the fog calling to him.

But not to flee. For the first time, the Lonely wasn’t urging him to run away.

It was… it was offering him… something?

“You say that I am weak for loving him,” Jon growled, beginning to untie the rope that bound him to Martin. “But you misunderstand. The strength of my love lies not in softness, but in _rage_.”

Now unfettered, he exchanged a look and a nod with the one he loved. “Don’t come between us.”

“I know,” said Martin, who loved him.

Jon advanced – not on the form of Elias Bouchard but towards the fragile form of Jonah Magnus, into the center of the watchtower. He stood there for a moment, contemplating the near-mummified body, and then he looked up at the ceiling, to the glass dome set into the roof, through which the pupil of the Eye peered.

“Ceaseless Watcher,” Jon began, static rising as he spoke, “look upon this man, marked by all terrors and consumed by all fears. Gaze into me, through me... and out of me.”

Jonah shook his head frantically as the tower began to shake. “No… no, what is he doing?”

“Make me the vessel of your hunger, staring out and—”

A loud crack shot through the room, and the roof began to peel away.

“The Eye’s just like its servants,” Martin said, curling his fingers into fists and digging his nails into his palms until he felt the bite of drawn blood, all the keep from reaching out and pulling Jon back. “It’s _curious_.”

The static got louder, and so did the wind.

“—harvesting with all that sees and all that feels and all that yearns and all that bleeds—”

Jon gasped and fell to his knees, and Martin and Jonah were forced to do the same, pressing their hands to their ears as the scream of the wind and the agony of the incantation pierced their brains.

“Gift me your power and presence,” Jon cried out. “Unbind my body and my bones and make—me—yours!”

A flash of color like nothing Martin had ever seen before and could never describe or remember clearly seared over them all, and then the enormous hungry Eye that had covered the world seemed to be sucked into Jon's body, all in a diving rush. It jerked him into the air like a rag doll, and he hung there in awful silence, save for the involuntary grunts forced from his lips by nerve endings that had never been intended for such a purpose.

“The Beholding is… Christ, no,” Jonah breathed.

Martin nodded, so completely consumed with fear for Jon that all he could do was be calm. “Yes. It’s never embodied itself before, never put all of its power into a human body.”

“But—but why would it ever want to?”

“For the experience.”

“But I was here, all the time! I could have—”

“You weren’t ever powerful enough,” said Martin, with grim satisfaction, and disgust, too, because in that moment, he would have given _anything_ to Jon to have been equally lacking in power. “You made Jon the perfect avatar… the perfect vessel for the Eye. A perfect sacrifice.”

There was a… a _ripple_ in the world, and suddenly they were no longer alone. A door appeared beside Martin, a familiar yellow door out of which stepped a familiar distorted figure of a woman Jon had once tried to help, wearing a stony expression Martin had never seen on her face that was not her face before.

A tall black man with a careworn face and iridescent eyes, who had not been there before, was now standing beside Jonah.

And looking up at Jon, a young woman with spidersilk webbed over the side of her skull.

Annabelle glanced at Martin, and grinned. “And a perfect distraction.”

Another ripple passed over the world, like a stitch being drawn suddenly from a wound, and then everything jumbled together in a jangling sound like wailing, anguished knives.

The Eye was sucked abruptly out of Jon’s body, back into the sky, and it blinked rapidly, and darted back and forth in wild, agitated confusion.

The Unchanging had begun.

Around and above and below them, the Panopticon shook. The stones rattled louder and louder as the mortar dropped from between them, and the glass in the windows shattered. The ruined world made much the same sounds, rattling and shattering, Watched and Watcher alike screaming as they were unmade and remade and rewoven and unwoven.

Finally able to move, Martin scrambled over to where Jon lay on the flagstones. He had dropped, all crumpled, beside the corpse of Jonah Magnus, while the living Jonah held his head in his hands and screamed and screamed and screamed. Martin touched Jon’s face and throat and chest, desperate for a pulse, for a breath, _anything_ , and couldn’t find it.

“No… no, Jon, please… _please_ …”

“His strings have been cut,” said Annabelle.

Martin and Helen both made noises at that (although Helen’s was more disappointed than distraught).

But Oliver shook his head. “Not cut. Merely unraveled. I don’t have him yet.” He tilted his head. “Maybe not for a very long while. Depending on what happens next.” He traded a glance with Annabelle, who looked at Martin pointedly.

He didn’t notice. He was looking at Jonah, huddled under one of the windows, his arms wrapped around his head, rocking back and forth and babbling pathetically as the threads of reality were unraveled within him.

Martin crouched over the limp, broken, eye-strewn body of the Archivist, whom he loved, and felt… _rage_.

He stared at Jonah Magnus and knew he was Seeing not with his own eyes, but with Jon’s. But his rage was his own.

“Ceaseless Watcher,” he whispered, grasping the last vestiges of his connection with the Eye before time was pulled apart completely, “turn your gaze upon this wretched thing.”

And he Watched as Jonah Magnus’s god turned on him, and devoured what was left of him.

“Nicely done,” said Helen, raising her voice to be heard over the ripping of the world.

Annabelle and Oliver had gone—how or where, Martin no longer had any way of knowing. And Helen was clearly on her way out, as well. “I know you won’t leave the Archivist,” she said, leaning precariously out of her doorway, “and I can’t have you two in my corridors anyway, but I’m making the symbolic offer so that in case you live, you can’t say I didn’t at least attempt to be nice.”

All of Jon’s eyes were closed now. Tears streamed down Martin’s face as he clutched him close, but he did manage to croak out, “Thanks, Helen,” before her door closed and vanished.

There was only one thing left that Martin could do, and… he did it.

He reached for the sea of tears where his heart had been, and he reached for the fog, and he reached for the agony of knowing that there was no way back for either of them.

As the Panopticon collapsed underneath them and the world unwound, Martin and Jon were swallowed up by the Lonely.

* * *

It was the same gentle fear that he remembered from his first visit, except now his mind was clear. “I know where I am this time,” Martin called into the fog. “And I know what you’re offering. I know there’s a price, and I’ll pay it. You can have it, you can have _me_. But let’s get one thing straight: you do _not_ get to tear us apart. D’you understand? Me and Jon—me and _the Archivist_ —we’re a package deal.

“It’s the loneliest feeling in the world... being in love. It’s... wonderful and exhilarating and terrifying, because every time you say, ‘I love you,’ you’re also saying ‘Goodbye’ in the same breath.

“And it’s not a feeling I can ever share. What I feel for Jon... it’s not what he feels for me. And whatever he feels for me is… that’s his. But my love for him is mine. It’s powerful and all-consuming and it is _mine_. And I don’t want to share it. All love is lonely, but this love is mine and this man is mine, and if this is the price for saving him, then... well, this time I’m choosing it. No schemes, no plans. Just me.

“And if that’s not enough for you, then just kill us both. Otherwise… we’re going home now.”

He didn’t fall, but abruptly he slammed into the ground again. His legs buckled, and he fell to one knee. There was sand under his toes, cold and wet, and he wondered dimly what had happened to his boots and socks. There was a weight, too, in his arms, the weight of a person, thin and warm in spite of the mists that shrouded the beach.

Martin curled Jon closer to his chest, and pressed his lips to the forehead under the lank, graying-black hair.

Slowly, painfully, Martin stood, and he began to walk.


	15. Sacrifices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon and Martin are home, and for now, for a price, the world is quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THERE’S SOME FLUFF IN THIS CHAPTER. And also angst. BUT FLUFF!!!1! 
> 
> No warnings that I can think of, but let me know if there's something I ought to tag for.
> 
> Thank you as always for reading, and for all the kudos and comments. ♥

When the world snapped back into focus, for a moment, Jon was… confused. He was at the cabin – in the bedroom, as a matter of fact – lying on the bed with a soft plaid blanket laid over him. The curtains were drawn over the window but a little late afternoon sunlight trickled in between them, and it was… quiet. 

The world… was quiet. Except for an odd… crackle.

Jon’s first instinct was to panic. He tried to move but his entire body felt like one enormous interconnected bruise, and even his brain seemed to ache and throb. When he tried, carefully, to reach out with his mind, to Know what was happening around him, the only information he got was a low hum of white noise, like a radio softly and stubbornly stuck between two station signals. 

He swallowed bitterly. The sound roared in his ears like the crash of a wave, and he tasted metal and salt. The crackling grew louder, and every muscle in Jon’s tired, abused body tensed as he waited for whatever power the sound heralded to make itself known—

A familiar round face, topped by soft reddish-brown hair, peeked cautiously round the half-open door. “Oh, thank god, you’re awake. I wasn’t sure when—”

“Martin,” Jon breathed. He threw back the blanket and tried to stand up. 

“Easy, easy!” Martin pushed open the door, his hands outstretched for Jon to steady himself on. “Jesus, Jon, I swear, you’re going to be the—”

Jon pulled Martin in for a long, long hug, burying his face in the clean blue woolen jumper that smelled of tea and wood smoke. “You’re safe,” he mumbled. Dimly, he registered that Martin was sitting down on the bed and let himself be shifted accordingly, so long as he wasn’t dislodged. “You’re safe.”

“We’re safe, Jon,” said Martin softly, resting his cheek on Jon’s hair. “It worked.”

“It… worked? I… all of it?”

“‘S far as I can tell… yep. Apocalypse reversed. World saved. Job done.”

Jon waited for the ‘but’ to follow on from the end of the sentence. There was always a caveat in his life, always something that went wrong when he tried to do something right. That was just how things worked. But Martin didn’t sound resigned or bitter, like they’d undone the end of the world for everyone except themselves. He just sounded… quiet, and tired. 

“How long have I been asleep?” Jon asked, steeling himself to be told that it had been another six months, or worse, that time was still meaningless and now always would be.

“About six, seven hours?”

“Oh. That’s… not so bad, all things considered.” 

“Yeah. I tried to nap a bit, myself, but… couldn’t sleep.” He sighed. “Wanted to make sure you were going to wake up first. …I wasn’t actually sure you would, you know. Not after what you… what happened, at the end. You were in a pretty bad way, when we got here.” 

Jon briefly unfurled from Martin’s chest to look up at him. “And… how did we get here?”

“Oh! So, um… when we… came back? Were put back? We were actually just outside of the cabin. Where we started our cross-apocalypse tour, I guess. And you were unconscious. I wasn’t feeling too great but at least I was standing, so I…” Martin took a deep breath. “I got you inside and—” 

Jon groaned. “You carried me, didn’t you?” 

“Well, it was either that or _drag_ you over the threshold like some… Victorian representation of a caveman bringing home a mate.”

“Mmph. I’d’ve made a pretty sorry caveman’s mate. Am I in your lap, by the way?”

“You are, and I’m keeping you here.”

“Yes, thanks.” Jon tightened his hold on the jumper and stretched up to briefly press a kiss to his jawbone. “Thank you, Martin. As always.”

Martin pulled him closer, almost curling into a ball around him. “I’m here,” he murmured. “You’re here. We’re here.”

“And… the others? Do we know—I mean, I don’t suppose you’ve—?” Jon trailed off, not entirely sure of what he wanted to say, or what he wanted to know. He could still sense the Beholding but it was plainly in no mood to talk with him – the only static in his mind was the kind that heralded pain rather than information – and only Martin’s enveloping presence made him feel able to speak at all.

“I don’t know, not yet. No signal up here, remember?”

“Right, right… we’ll have to go down to the village.” Jon’s mouth went dry, and he must have tensed, because Martin was running his hands up and down Jon’s back, over his shoulders, rubbing gentle grounding circles just under the base of his neck. 

“We’ll get there,” Martin assured him. “But for the moment we’re okay. The cabin’s not made of meat, the tea hasn’t grown horrifying legs and scampered up the chimney, there’s firewood and food and… statements.”

“Statem—fuck. Martin, the—the statement from Elias, from Jonah, we have to—” 

“It’s gone.”

“Gone, what d’you mean, ‘gone’?”

“I mean,” Martin repeated, patiently, but with something hard and dark in his voice that made Jon look up sharply, “that it is gone. Because I burnt it, Jon. I found it on the table and I burnt it. And then I flushed the ashes down the toilet.”

“…Please tell me you pissed on them first.”

“What d’you take me for, an amateur? Of course I did. I also destroyed the tape that was in the recorder on the table, and I thought about taking a hammer to the recorder, just so I could say I did my due diligence. But then I realized that was probably overkill.”

Jon laughed. It was unpracticed and awkward but it was a genuine laugh, something his throat barely knew how to do anymore, but it made the anger in Martin’s eyes fade, and he looked at Jon with exhaustion and affection and _love_ , and it was almost too much. 

“I thought…” Jon took a shuddering breath. “When I woke up, I… thought I heard the Lonely. There was that crackle, you know?”

“Yes, I know.” Martin kissed him softly. “That was the fireplace, Jon.”

“…Oh,” Jon muttered, his cheeks growing hot.

“You didn’t Know?”

“No, I can’t…”

“Oh… oh no.” To Jon’s horror, he saw the color literally fade from Martin’s face and hair and eyes, until he was almost no more than a shadow. “You’re… the Eye, you’re cut off from it, even after _everything_ —”

“No! No, not cut off!” Jon pressed his hands to either side of Martin’s face and forced him, gently, to meet his eyes. “Look at me, Martin. I’m here, _we’re_ here.”

Martin rested his forehead against Jon’s, and breathed carefully. “S-sorry.”

“No, it’s… it’s okay. I’m okay, I promise. I’m still connected to the Eye, it’s just… sulking a bit, at the moment, I guess. It’s… I’m still not sure what to expect, but I’d guess there’ll have to be some kind of… readjustment period, now.”

“No more post-apocalyptic Google?”

“Hopefully not. As useful as it could be…” Jon’s thin shoulders twitched in a shrug. “How easy it still is, after everything that’s happened, to want to rely on the Eye.” 

“Jon… Jon, what exactly did you _do_? The distraction. You told me the shape of it before we went inside, but I’m still not clear on the… details.”

“I…” Jon shuddered violently and tried to shrink closer to Martin’s broad chest. “I… became… the Beholding. And it became me. And I gave it everything. Every scrap of terror, and elation, and dread, and despair, and love. Everything I had, it… It didn’t know, Martin. It didn’t _know_. And when it had taken everything that I could give it, it wanted more. But there wasn’t anything else, and there would never be anything else, ever again. And it was… it felt… _scared_.”

“You… embodied an eldritch entity of fear and made it _feel scared._ ”

“…Apparently so.”

“You… are… a madman.”

“I am not about to argue with that. And I think… I tried to make it question. What if Jonah was wrong? What if things were better for the Eye before the Change? The Eye was getting bored, and the End knew it only had to wait before everything was consumed. What if Jonah was manipulating the Eye for his own gain?”

“I mean, he was, more or less. So what you told the Eye was true.”

“It _wasn’t_ , though. Jonah wasn’t doing anything differently from any of the other people who tried to pull off a ritual. It was always a—a mutually beneficial arrangement, sort of. Jonah wanted power but he never dreamed of being more powerful than the Beholding.”

“So y—you lied to the Eye?!”

“I bluffed.”

“You bluffed the Ceaseless Watcher while it was _inside your soul_? Jon, you’re the worst liar who ever lived!”

“I know. And I usually lose at poker.”

“So _how_?”

“I…” For half a second, Jon tried to put into words all that he had said and done and thought and felt and screamed and lived and died, while he was the Eye and the Eye was him, and then he abandoned the attempt before it could crawl towards his tongue. “I changed the rules.”

“So Oliver and Helen and Annabelle and all the rest… they were actually telling the truth.”

“As well as they understood it… yes.”

“Hmm.” Martin’s hand rubbed slowly up and down Jon’s spine. “I still want to know why they helped us.”

“They wanted this world back. Doubtless there are other, more subtle and probably deeply unpleasant reasons, but that’s the simplest reason. …At least they did tell me the truth.”

“…Sorry?”

The sound of waves echoed under Jon’s ear. He sighed and unfurled his thin self from Martin’s protective embrace, keeping hold of his hands, and met his eyes. “How did we _really_ get back?”

“I…” Martin stared at him blankly for a second or two. Then he looked away. “I brought us into the Lonely, Jon. I called to it, and… I took what it offered.”

“…Martin, no.”

“It was… I didn’t want us to die there. I wasn’t going to let _you_ to die there, in that hellscape, with El—with _Jonah_. So I just… carried you, and walked. And walked. And walked. You were in my arms and you were so heavy, and I kept thinking, ‘how can he be so heavy when he’s skin and bones?’ My arms were so tired, and I couldn’t see my feet but I knew they were bleeding… but I just kept walking. I didn’t know the way out, I just knew I couldn’t stop, so I kept… wandering. God only knows for how long. But then I looked up and the fog had cleared and… there was the cabin. Right in front of us.”

Jon swallowed and waited for Martin to pull his hands away. He didn’t. “Can I ask what the Lonely demanded in return for that? I know… there must have been a price. There always is.”

“There are lots of ways to be Lonely, Jon,” said Martin, very softly. “And they all hurt. But they don’t involve losing you, so… I’ll get used to them.”

They were silent for a long time, the only sound the gentle crackle of the fire in the living room. At last, Jon spoke. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry you had to make this choice.”

“Jon, it’s… it’s okay.”

“It’s _not okay_ , it is _agony_ , to know that the people I care about are always having to ruin their lives just to keep me safe—” 

Martin gaped at him. “Th… Jon, I hate to burst your bubble of self-loathing, but I didn’t do this for you.”

“…I. …I don’t understand.”

“I knew you were willing to die to put things right, but I wasn’t—I couldn’t…. I couldn’t. I couldn’t lose you.”

“That’s why you kept asking me, then, if I wanted to live.”

“Yes! I didn’t know if I could save us both, but if there was a way, I was taking it, and I’d pay the price. But if—if you were that determined to die… I didn’t want to stand in your way. So I needed to know. Because… that was the choice. To either die as a human or live as a monster. I made my choice. I’m just sorry I made yours for you, too, but… not that sorry.”

“I made my own choice a long time ago, Martin. And… you can live with the cost?”

“If it was before, I’d’ve said no. But that was before the end of the world. We’ve seen what happens when the world breaks, and the rules don’t matter except to the beings who make them. Now maybe,” Martin continued, with something that sounded uneasily like hope, “maybe _we_ get to make some of our own rules, make them stick. And we get to decide what words like human and monster mean.”

Overcome with the idea, he squeezed Jon’s hands excitedly. But Jon only stared at him, wide-eyed and numb. 

Martin swallowed, all his eagerness draining away like water through sand. “…Please say you’re not angry with me.”

“I’m… no, I’m, I’m not angry with you, Martin. I am… I am horrified that you were ever put in a position where this was a decision that you had to make. I’m… sad and… upset that… that you had to make this sacrifice… and…” Jon tried to hold back a sob and only half succeeded. “I’m… honestly still… kind of astonished? That you think that I’m worth this kind of sacrifice. But… angry, no. I… I can’t be angry, Martin, you… I can’t be.”

There were tears spilling down his cheeks now. Martin wiped them away with the corner of the plaid blanket, and shook his head. “I didn’t do it for you, Jon,” he said, so firmly that it bordered on annoyance, “okay? I did it for _me_. Because you’re _my_ reason. That is a very different thing than me throwing my life away in isolation to keep you safe. It was my choice. I need you to—to allow me the dignity of my choice.”

“Okay. I understand. I’m not going to make a big deal out of you quoting the Captain America movie at me.”

“Thank you.”

“Even though it was really cute.”

“Shut up!”

Jon grinned delightedly, and he pulled Martin’s blushing face close and kissed him thoroughly for the first time in ages.


	16. Adjustments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon and Martin try to go back to... whatever passes for normal for them, now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the (comparative) lateness of this chapter - I've been elbow-deep in [prompt fills](https://gaslightgallows.tumblr.com/tagged/nano-sanity-2020-prompts). Also I had to split this chapter in half, so for anyone who follows me on Tumblr and was expecting a statement in this chapter - sorry, it'll be in the next one, I promise!
> 
> Chapter warnings for chronic injuries, blood, isolation, bones, relationship issues, Dread Powers being petty bitches, discussion of death & murder. (It all passes fairly quickly.)
> 
> Thank you as always for reading, and for all the kudos and comments! Om nom nom, delicious feedback. ♥

They had a week to recover before reality found them. Just one week.

* * *

It was strange, they both agreed, just how perfectly easy it was to slip back into the habits they had formed a lifetime ago, during that brief, wonderful time away from the Institute.

Jon cooking, and Martin doing the washing up, and then trading off the next day. Learning how to share a bed, and shy, sweet conversations late into the night about what they were comfortable doing and not doing while sharing that bed. Sleeping, sometimes even mostly peacefully. Snuggling together on the sofa while watching Daisy’s very outdated and frankly terrible collection of DVDs. Going for walks in the fields around the cabin, well away from people, admiring the shaggy highland cows from a respectful distance.

After the Change, every good, soft, loving thing that they shared in Scotland had seemed like a distant, far-off memory, no more than a half-remembered dream.

Now they had it all back, and it was all so… easy. Easy and familiar and _safe_ – and so strange.

“It’s wonderful, it’s just… it all feels a bit unreal, somehow,” Jon admitted, his voice half-muffled against Martin’s chest as they lay in bed under a faded patchwork quilt, their arms tight around each other. “Like it… more properly belongs to some other world.”

“Like it’s too good to be true,” Martin agreed softly, “like something’s going to come along and shatter everything all over again.”

“N-no, not exactly… Why? Is that what you’re feeling?”

“Like we’re waiting for the other shoe to drop? Like we’re waiting for an entire hurricane of shoes to drop on our heads, one right after the other? Yeah.” Jon pressed even closer. “I just… I want to enjoy this, Jon, but after what happened before, I almost feel like… I don’t know, like we shouldn’t get too comfortable? And…” Martin hesitated, and then let out a small sigh. “Never mind.”

“Martin. Tell… I would like you to tell me. Please.”

“…There’s a part of me that’s practically screaming to do something to fuck this up on my own terms, before some… angry monster with a grudge just… destroys everything.”

Jon let out a whimper. “Martin, I—”

“Don’t worry,” he murmured, kissing the very tip of Jon’s nose for the pleasure of seeing him scowl and flush. “That’s not actually going to happen, I promise. I’m not about to fall for that old chestnut.”

Jon had a mulish expression that spoke eloquently of how much he wanted to push the issue, but before he could ask any more questions, Martin rolled over and enveloped Jon in his arms, which was both a very effective distraction and a good way of muffling anything Jon might have been about to say.

* * *

For the first two or so days, they mainly spent their time sleeping, either in wrapped around one another in bed or stacked one on top of the other on the sofa. More than anything else, more than relief or contentment, what they felt most overwhelmingly was a crushing sense of exhaustion.

“It’s an adjustment,” was Jon’s assessment, as they walked slowly back to the cabin from their walk to the nearby pasture. “We’ve come from a reality where we were two of the most powerful beings in the world, and now we’re back to being just—well, not _just_ human, but… avatars on more-or-less equal footing with other avatars.”

“Normal monsters rather than super-monsters,” Martin translated. “Whatever that’s worth.” They paused to give Jon a chance to rest his leg; the wound from Daisy had almost entirely healed before the Unchanging, but now that Jon wasn’t the next best thing to a god, the injury was proving to be troublesome. “I wish we’d thought to grab your cane before we came.”

“Ah yes, the cane that was in my flat. That I was evicted from last year.”

Martin sighed. “Maybe I can find a decent stick for you to use… or see if I can find something in the village, next time I walk down for supplies.” Then he grimaced. “Whenever that’ll be. I feel pretty winded myself.”

“Walking for months on end with barely a break will do that,” said Jon, leaning against his side. “We both look a bit like the walking dead.”

He wasn’t kidding; Martin had been horrified, the first time he’d looked in the cabin’s bathroom mirror and realized that staring back at him was the thin, drawn, wraithlike figure he’d glimpsed in the pictures in Helen’s corridors. “I don’t even want to know what Basira would say, if she could see us now.”

Jon grinned briefly. “Probably nothing fit for polite company.”

“Is she okay? I mean… d’you think she remembers any of it?”

“I don’t know. I hope not. …I should probably check. If I still can.” Jon rubbed his temples briefly and then closed his eyes and tried to Know.

His head snapped back suddenly, as though he’d been punched, and Jon found himself slumped against a worried Martin’s side, blood trickling from his nose.

“Right,” he coughed, as Martin helped him limp back to the cabin, “I guess that answers that.”

* * *

**[tape clicks on]**

“Ow… I think the bleeding’s stopped.”

“Let me see… yep, all done. I’ll get you a fresh shirt. I guess it was stupid to think that we’d get away from the Panopticon in one piece without us both paying some sort of price… At least it wasn’t more serious.”

“No, nothing more serious than the Beholding throwing a bit of a temper tantrum.”

A slight laugh. “Really? Well, the tape recorders are still doing their thing, I see. That’s… encouraging and unnerving, I guess.”

“Hmph. ‘Encouraging and unnerving.’ Those are probably the most positive words to describe our lives now.”

“Right, so… you’re back to needing statements. I’ll head to the village, give Basira a call… check in.”

“She’ll be irritated. From her perspective, it’s only been a few days.”

“Honestly, I wouldn’t even mind. Anyway, should I have her send up a new stack?”

“No, I haven’t actually read any of these yet.”

“Really? But… all that time, after—”

“I was mostly focused on the tapes. I was… a bit leery of reading anything else.”

“Ah. Yeah, I—I get that.”

“Just… give them a once-over, make sure there’s no obvious terrible incantations in them.”

“Why, you think Jonah might’ve put a back-up statement in there?”

“Not… not really? That almost seems like too much uncertainty. He was nothing if not confident. No, it’s more… Basira sent them.”

“Yeah. And?”

“Basira sent them _all_ , Martin. She just _happened_ to grab a bunch of statements that had the exact one Jonah needed me to read, and she just _happened_ to send all the tapes that eventually made me angry enough to want to confront Jonah Magnus in the first place. That wasn’t a coincidence.”

“But—but she couldn’t have known about Jonah’s trap or the tapes. She just grabbed—oh. Oh god.”

“I was sent what I needed to see and read and hear and _Know_. And just because Basira been able to hold herself aloof from committing to or being consumed by any of the Fears, I think it’s dangerous of us to assume that she’s immune from being influenced by them.”

“…Point taken. So… you want me to pick out a juicy one for you?”

“Heh. To be honest, even something stale and dry would taste good right now.”

“Got it. Stale, dry, and non-world-ending.” The sound of papers being shuffled. “Hmm… yeah, I think this one looks good. Not too long, either. Just right for lunch.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ll just… if you don’t need me to go to the village today, I’m gonna… go off on my own for a bit. Spend some time by myself.”

“…In the Lonely.”

“…Yeah. Look, Jon, I know you’re reluctant to let me out of your sight, and I _get_ it, I do, but—we’re not in danger right now, and I just… I need this. I know how to get in and out now, and I feel… restless.”

“Hungry.”

“ _No._ Look, I just need to be by myself for a little while!”

“I understand. You… well. You did say there would be a price.”

“Come off it, Jon. You’re acting like this isn’t how I’ve _always_ been. And I haven’t had any time to myself since… since you were in a coma.”

“Neither have I. I haven’t been alone – _really_ alone – since the Unknowing. I was always watched, and after the Unknowing, I knew what it was. And now… I’ve had this entire alien being possess me, if only briefly, and it left behind more than a mark. It’s part of me – a part of it is _still_ within me, in a metaphysical sense, and it’s… not comfortable or comforting, I don’t _like_ it, but… I’m never alone anymore.”

“That… sounds… horrible.”

“I mean… it is, but it… isn’t?”

“It would be for me. Even before, and especially now. I told you, way back at the Institute. The Lonely’s always had me, Jon. Now it’s just… on an equal footing. Well. Bit more equal. Don’t worry, I’m not gonna make the mistake of thinking I can outsmart a fear god. I just… I won’t stay away long. But I do need to go, Jon.”

“I know.”

“Maybe… maybe there is a kind of hunger there, but I’m not sure for exactly _what_ , yet. It’s… something to figure out.”

“Alone.”

“…I hope not.”

“Do what you need to. Just… come back, Martin.”

“I will, Jon.”

The sound of a door closing.

“Right.”

**[tape clicks off]**

* * *

The second his feet passed from soil to sand, Martin felt every muscle in his body unclench. He stood on the damp gray beach, where it was never quite day and never quite night, and the peacefulness of the place washed over and through him. It felt so different from his first visit, when he’d been desperate and suicidal and scared, convinced that there was nothing left for him but to give himself over to the quiet background fear of isolation. Now he could just… _be_.

Be alone, and walk for hours along the shore, where he could look back from time to time and see no other footprints but his own, and then watch the waves reach up and melt the prints away. The beach went on forever, and Martin felt in the back of his mind that he could go anywhere from here. He wasn’t limited in how and where he traveled within the Lonely—he didn’t have to go back to the cabin, for example. He could go… anywhere.

The Forsaken was everywhere. _Martin_ was everywhere. And he was nowhere. He could go where he pleased just by passing from the Lonely back into the gaze of the Eye, and only the Beholding would ever see him, if he so chose.

He would never escape the Watcher’s gaze… or Jon’s.

Martin stopped in mid-stride, frowning at a horizon he couldn’t quite make out.

It wasn’t that he wanted to get away from _Jon_ , exactly. He just wanted to… to get _away_ , period. New romance was hard, and with the apocalypse thrown in, things had been… stressful? He needed to have space to himself, to breathe and to think. To walk, to… wander.

“Right,” he sighed, “right.” He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes tiredly. “Wandering, Wanderer. I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me exactly what that means, anytime soon?”

A cold salt breeze that went straight through his bones was the only answer Martin got.

“Thanks for that,” he muttered, and kept walking. The dull roar of the sea to his left drowned out the dull roar in his chest, and he felt a little more whole in his aloneness.

His foot brushed against something that was neither sand nor seaweed. Martin looked down, and saw a bone. He blinked and looked around, and saw more bones, legs and ribs, vertebrae and a skull, all tossed above the high-tide mark. That there were bones at all surprised him; it took him a moment to remember that Jon hadn’t smote Peter out of existence the way he had the other avatars—he’d literally ripped him apart.

It felt like a lifetime ago. In some ways, it was.

“My god,” said a familiar, mockingly paternal voice that sent an icy chill through Martin’s already cold body, “you look like you’ve been through hell.”

Martin gritted his teeth, balled his hands into fists, and focused on the waves, both the ones lapping gently at his feet and the ones crashing and roaring in his chest. “You could say that, Peter, yeah.” He took a deep breath and turned to face Peter Lukas’s ghost. “You’re dead.”

“I am, yes. And you’re not, somehow.”

“Yeah, well. Can’t win all your bets, Peter.”

“More’s the pity. How’s the Archivist, by the way? Also dead?”

“No,” said Martin, his lips curling into a smug smile. “Jon is very much alive.”

“Hmm. And Elias?”

“Depends on your point of view.”

“I… see.”

“Mm, really don’t think you do.”

A strange expression passed over Peter’s face. “He was right about you, you know. You would have been a _perfect_ fit.”

“Perfect for what?”

But Peter only smiled and shrugged, and turned to gaze out over the mist-shrouded water.

“I met your kids,” said Martin, after a while.

The ghost of Peter Lukas frowned. “My… oh! That’s right. There are children.”

“…You f… You _forgot_ about them.”

“Specifically, yes. Generally, I know I have offspring, but I prefer not to think about them. And that’s what they prefer, too. How are they?”

“Unhappy,” said Martin, after a long moment. “Your daughter seemed… very angry.”

“Rosanna,” Peter sighed. “Yes, I suppose she would be. What about… heh.” He smiled. “D’you know… I don’t believe I remember my son’s name.”

“And you’re just utterly unbothered by that.”

“Of course. How’s he doing?”

“I’m… not sure, actually. He was kind of… unreadable.”

“Oh good,” said Peter brightly. “That sounds about right.”

“…What are you even _doing_ here, Peter? You’re _dead_.”

“Very, very dead,” Peter agreed, “and desperately irritated about it. Getting—getting _Known_ to death… it's not pleasant.”

“I don’t care. In fact, I’m delighted to hear it. But why—”

“I don’t _know_ , Martin.” Peter shrugged and looked… mildly perturbed, which was probably the most intense expression Martin had ever seen him display. “Perhaps because of how I died? Ask the Archivist. I’m sure he’ll know.”

Martin wasn’t entirely sure the Archivist was in a position to know anything of the kind. But he remembered Jon telling him about Gerard Keay’s ghost, and Eric Delano, and the Skin Book. “Does it hurt?” he asked. “Being dead?”

“It… doesn’t feel like… anything, really.”

“Must be nice for you, then. Not feeling anything.”

“No,” said Peter quietly. “It doesn’t feel _nice_.” The waves lapped through his legs, but he didn’t seem to notice. “There should be loneliness here… the fear of it, and the exhilaration. The terror of others like a low background drone… the mouth-watering anticipation… but there’s nothing. I can’t even see the lights through the fog.”

“Lights?”

“The lights from the Observatory.”

Martin shivered violently.

“Haven’t you noticed them?”

“I… have, yes. I’ve been there.” Peter stared at him, stunned. “That’s where I met Rosanna and—and your son.” Martin reached into his pocket. “Rosanna gave me this.”

And he pulled out the spyglass.

The blindfold of human skin hadn’t made it back; Martin wasn’t sure what he’d done with it – dropped it in the watchtower, right at the end, maybe? – but he also wasn’t sorry it was gone. But miraculously, the spyglass had survived both the chaos of the Panopticon’s destruction and the endless walk through the Forsaken, tucked away in the pocket of his trousers next to the still-pristine apple from Hill Top Road. The apple was on top of the bureau in the cabin’s bedroom, beside the unexpected souvenir Jon had brought back, in the inside pocket of his jacket—a tarot card, bearing the image of the Hanged Man, courtesy, Jon said, of Nathaniel Thorp.

But the spyglass never left Martin’s pocket. It felt comfortable, riding there against his hip, weighting him down just the tiniest bit.

Peter frowned translucently. “You… shouldn’t have that. You shouldn’t be _able_ to have that.” His hand hovered over the small collapsible telescope. “This belonged to my ancestor Isaac, the one I inherited the boatswain’s whistle from. This is a Lukas family heirloom.”

Martin shivered again, even more drastically.

“Fascinating,” Peter murmured. “I wonder…”

“Shut up,” Martin snarled.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d almost think—”

“Shut up, shut up, _shut up!_ ” Martin’s fingers snapped shut around the spyglass, and he drew his hand back as though to throw it at Peter’s head. “Leave me _alone!_ ”

That cold salt wind whipped up suddenly, bringing with it a punching smell of rot, and blew the ghost away, and the last thing Martin saw of Peter Lukas was that small, cruel smile.

He started at what was left of Peter’s mortal remains in absolute disgust. How dare, how _dare_ these empty bits of bone mar the pure isolation of _his_ small corner of perfect loneliness?

His first thought was to bury the bones in the sand… but even if no one else ever knew where they were, Martin would know. And Peter Lukas would always be here, never quite alone – which was a fitting punishment, as far as Martin was concerned… but he shied away from the eager wave of vindictiveness pushing his fingers into the sand.

Then he thought about picking up the bones one by one and flinging them into the water… but he knew, somehow, that the waves would bring them back, like a faithful dog with a stick… and he would never be free of them, or of Peter’s ghost.

And Martin didn’t want to share his little pocket domain with even the _memory_ of Peter Lukas, let alone with his ghost.

Unzipping his jacket, he spread it out on the ground next to the shattered skeleton, and slowly and painstakingly transferred each and every bone from the sand to the garment, untangling them from the rotting seaweed, brushing off the cold grit, and separating the bones from the few personal effects that remained: a briar pipe, an empty tobacco pouch, a brown leather billfold, and an old boatswain’s whistle on a silver chain.

The small items he put in his pocket. The skeleton he bundled up in his jacket with impersonal care, and then Martin rose and simply walked out of the Lonely. He didn’t even need to think of how to get back; he knew the way now.


	17. Statement: Deserter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Statement of Dr. Patrick Girdler, regarding the death of Captain Gilbert Manningtree in the military hospital at Chelsea in 1914._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before you read this chapter, I insist you stop and look at [the absolutely gorgeous artwork that glitchingicarus did for Chapter 9](https://glitchingicarus.tumblr.com/post/634328845037813761/its-okay-youre-okay-im-here-i-still-see). It's just too beautiful for words, I love it so much. 
> 
> It's time for a good old-fashioned statement, so heed the warnings. Chapter warnings for hospitals, doctors, disordered eating (supernatural), spiders, starvation/malnutrition, hallucinations, medical restraint of patients, war-related trauma (injuries/infections/lice), supernatural possession, murder/assisted suicide.
> 
> And if you'll pardon the paraphrasing... thanks for reading. ;)

**[tape clicks on]**

_Statement of Dr. Patrick Girdler, regarding the death of Captain Gilbert Manningtree in the military hospital at Chelsea in 1914. Original statement given December 17th, 1930. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, the Archivist.  
_

> I thought it only right that I tell you what happened, insofar as I understand it. Although at the time, it was impressed upon me by my superiors in the extreme that I remain silent on this matter, I think it unlikely that such an… academic establishment as this, falls under their categories of ‘the press’ or ‘the public’. And the captain was an associate of yours, I believe. Indeed, he appears to have had no living family or any other friends—his next of kin was given simply as ‘employer,’ and we’d have had a devil of a time trying to track you down, if not for his… well, his final ravings. And it’s been sixteen years… I’ve got to tell someone.
> 
> During the Great War, I was a consulting physician at the Second London General Hospital, at what used to be St. Mark’s College, not far from here. It’s the College of St. Mark and St. John now, of course. It had been something of a rush job, trying to establish a hospital there on such short notice, but by mid-September 1914, we were able to begin accepting patients. The first week or so, it was almost entirely men who’d been hurt during training. A lot of the lads were… shall we say, overeager to get out of the camps and shoot their rifles for real, and they caused quite the damage to themselves and each other in their enthusiasm.
> 
> Captain Gilbert Manningtree was one of our first patients, and from the start, he struck me as different from the rest. He was older, for one thing. Most of the boys were fresh-faced youths straight out of the universities, strong manly fellows determined to save the empire and cover themselves in glory. The absolute cream of British manhood. You remember, I’m sure. But the captain had at least ten years on the Oxbridge men, if not more. I was closer in age to the captain than to the other patients, so when I’d finished my duty round for the day, I’d go and sit with him for half an hour or so. But I can’t say I ever really got to know him, or what sort of work he’d done in civilian life. The only thing he ever volunteered was that the day war was declared, he walked out of his job and joined the army. He was educated, that much was plain, and terrifyingly well-read. Whenever I brought up the latest news or scientific discoveries in the medical world, he always seemed to know exactly what I was talking about. And yet, in the two weeks I knew him, I don’t think I ever saw him pick up so much as a newspaper.
> 
> He was a quiet, reedy man, with medium brown hair and the oddest eyes I’ve ever seen. They were pale, intense and icy blue, and once you saw them, the chill of them went straight through your bones and froze you to the spot. He knew it, too; whenever I had the misfortune to meet his gaze, we would stare at one another intently for a few seconds, until he blinked apologetically and I could move again. “Sorry, old chap,” he’d always say, his voice very soft. “Can’t help it, I’m afraid.”
> 
> It’s… difficult to say, really, what was the matter with him. He’d been admitted after repeatedly fainting on the parade ground, so naturally we assumed he had a dicky heart that he’d lied to the recruiter about. Rheumatic fever as a child, that kind of thing. But there was nothing wrong with his heart. Nor his lungs—not a trace of tuberculosis or asthma. The other doctors and I were completely baffled. I’d never seen such a rapid decline, not at the time and not since. The other doctors chalked it up to some form of cancer, perhaps of the pancreas, and to be sure, Captain Manningtree did appear to be losing weight with frightening speed, but he had none of the other symptoms of cancer, and the weight loss I attribute to the simple fact that he refused to eat. An occasional cup of tea was all he would consume.
> 
> The men who’d come with him from his regiment, who were convalescing from simple torn muscles and overexertion, told me that was normal for the captain, that they’d never seen him touch so much as a morsel at mess time. When the nurses scolded Manningtree for his lack of appetite, he would only shrug. “Food doesn’t agree with me anymore,” he said, rather mournfully. “It hasn’t in a long time.”
> 
> The captain was a good sport about all of our poking and prodding, and as eager as any man to get his all-clear and go back to his regiment. At least, that was what I thought when he was first admitted.
> 
> I had finished my shift and offered to play cards with him for a bit, as a way of passing the time. He agreed and we played a few hands. He wasn’t an especially good card player—according to him, he found the face cards rather difficult to deal with. He said he didn’t like the eyes.
> 
> After his fourth loss I was just saying something about how I ought to have placed a wager on myself, when I saw his own eyes lock onto something.
> 
> It was a spider, climbing over his blanket-covered leg.
> 
> Now, I’ve no trouble with spiders myself, but in my business, it’s not at all uncommon to find the strongest men screaming like terrified children over the sight of them. So when the captain froze, I assumed he had a phobia. I said something soothing and reached out to brush the spider away. His hand came up and locked on my arm. He laid down the other hand, and the spider immediately crawled into his palm.
> 
> Captain Manningtree raised his hand to his lips, and for one very uncomfortable second, I thought he was going to eat the thing. Instead, he whispered to it. Among the din of the communal ward, I could just make out what he said. “I’m not going back. You’re not taking me back.”
> 
> Then he held his hand out over the side of the bed, and let the spider drop to the floor.
> 
> I made some excuse to hurry away, after that. And I didn’t sleep much, that night. It… unnerved me.
> 
> The next day, I asked Manningtree what he’d meant by all that. He stared at me with those cold, clear eyes. And then he smiled. “I meant exactly what I said. I’m not going back.”
> 
> I said that if he’d had second thoughts about joining up, then he needed to tell us just what the hell secret he was keeping about his health, because while it might not save his life, it might at least save him from being shot by the Huns. The captain just shrugged. He said his secrets were his own, and they weren’t going to stop him from doing what he thought was right.
> 
> For that first day or so, he continued in good spirits. Annoyed at the inexplicable failings of his own body, as any man would be, but cheerful and very sure that whatever was the matter with him would be cured by a few days of bed-rest under a proper roof. Instead, he grew steadily weaker, almost by the hour. On the morning of the third day, he couldn’t even make it to a toilet without assistance. I’ll spare you the description of his further personal indignities.
> 
> By the end of the first week, he was delirious, and still we could find nothing wrong with him. There was no fever, no infection of any kind, and yet he screamed. His hallucinations were of the most horrific kind, and set the men in the ward shouting and sobbing and banging on their bedsteads to call the nurses to shut the captain up.
> 
> What else could we do? We strapped him to his bed to stop him thrashing, and he broke the straps. We strapped his jaw shut to at least keep him quiet, and he broke both the strap and his jaw. We pumped him full of enough morphia to kill an ox, and still he raved. About eyes, eyes watching him and boring into him, and boring _out_ of him, and about someone called Magnus. “Damn you, Magnus, you won’t get me back! You can keep your horrors, I’ve a job to do!” I don’t know what in Christ’s name you people did to him, but it tormented him to death. He screamed out that he was starving, but when the nurses tried to feed him broth, he’d choke and vomit it back up. And then it would all start over again.
> 
> None of us knew what he meant. Someone—I think it was the hospital’s quartermaster—wondered if he was talking about ‘the old Magnus Institute, which was something in the psychical line.’ I remembered that, after it was all over, but in the moment, it rather slipped my mind. There just wasn’t time.
> 
> You see, that was when we started getting more desperate cases. Soldiers back from France with missing limbs and terrible shrapnel wounds, most of them suffering from septicaemia, all of them absolutely mud-encrusted and crawling with lice. All the staff were at our wits’ end, and so were the patients.
> 
> Finally, we had to move the captain to the surgical section of the hospital. There were a few small private rooms there, intended for really serious cases, and if Captain Manningtree didn’t qualify, then no one did. He wouldn’t be able to disturb anyone in there—the doors to the private rooms all had locks on the outside. I helped to move him, and once we got him settled and comfortable in his own little room, he seemed to calm slightly. Certainly he seemed lucid for the first time in days.
> 
> “New digs, Captain,” he said to him, patting his shoulder, and he smiled, rather vaguely.
> 
> I ought to have kept my mouth shut, but I remembered what he had shouted in his delirium, and I added, “No need to worry now. Old Magnus won’t find you here.”
> 
> The smile snapped off his face, and he looked up at me, as clear and rational and uncompromising as the barrel of a gun. “He’s not to be feared. It’s his master.”
> 
> “His master?” I said, trying to keep jolly and play along. “And who might that be?”
> 
> The captain lifted a hand to his face, and placed the tip of one finger at the corner of his right eye. “I’ve left my post,” he said dully. “Deserted, you might say. Just… walked off, without so much as a by-your-leave, for the sake of king and country. It won’t be slighted, Pat. It wants me back. And if I don’t go…” For the first time, he looked afraid. “Don’t let it take me back,” he murmured.
> 
> Then his hand slipped from his face, and he lapsed back into his horrible dreams.
> 
> It was that final plea, I think, that made me… well, take leave of my senses.
> 
> Like all officers, Captain Manningtree had been issued a pistol, and although he hadn’t yet made it to France, the weapon was with the rest of his kit. So… I took it. It certainly wasn’t my custom to go about my rounds armed, and I certainly didn’t think the captain was _dangerous_ , but… as I said, I was unnerved, and though it does no credit to my professionalism or to my nerves… I can’t explain why I took it.
> 
> All I can tell you is… he didn’t want to go back.
> 
> He was barely alive, at the end. In the whole of the two weeks he was in my care, he hadn’t eaten a thing, and had barely had a sip of any liquid. He oughtn’t to have lasted as long as he did, under the circumstances, and yet I swear to you, in spite of that, I think he would have been _fine_ —if something outside of himself wasn’t determinedly trying to kill him.
> 
> I was on duty, that final night. I shouldn’t have been, but one of the other doctors from Guy’s was ill, so I volunteered to pull a double shift. The captain’s pistol was under my coat, loaded, and I was acutely conscious of its weight in my pocket as I checked on the men in the wards.
> 
> I left the captain’s room until last. There was no ulterior motive in the decision that I am aware of; the private rooms were the farthest away from the convalescent and surgical wards. But I don’t deny that I was relieved; I had the notion that I wouldn’t be much good to anyone else, after I’d looked in on the captain.
> 
> I had no idea how right I was to be…
> 
> As I turned down the corridor where the private rooms were, tucked away from the common soldiers, I saw to my shock that Captain Manningtree was there, in the corridor! He was slumped against the wall in his shirt and trousers, and the clothes practically dripped off of his emaciated frame.
> 
> I couldn’t understand it—how could he, a man all but dead and wasted away, have gotten out of bed, let alone out of a room that had been locked from the outside? As I got closer, I saw to my horror that the heavy wooden door of his room had literally been torn from its hinges.
> 
> I called his name and hurried to his side. There was a brief flash of blue, like a bolt of lightning, and then the captain flung me back with a strength that I can only describe as superhuman.
> 
> And then Captain Manningtree _screamed_.
> 
> I have never heard such a sound come out of a human throat. I wouldn’t even believe that such a sound _can_ be produced by human vocal chords, except that I did hear it. And I know what logical progression is to be made from that statement, but… I can’t, I _won’t_ put it down on paper. You may draw what conclusions you like. I will only say that it sounded like a man’s bones being ripped from his body, one at a time, through his mouth.
> 
> And then I saw the captain _move_ —not under his own power, I’m sure of it, and not the way a puppet moves, with the aid of an external force. No, I tell you he moved as though something inside him was compelling him forward, but whatever it was had no idea of how the human body ought to move. He twitched and writhed and lurched, fell forward onto the floor, and wriggled like a hideous pallid worm, trying desperately to move towards something—what, I have no idea. But now that I’m here, in this place… I have my suspicions.
> 
> But by god, the captain fought it. It fought it every damned inch of the way.
> 
> The last thing I saw, before I shot Captain Manningtree, were his eyes, as blue as a frozen sea, cold and inhuman, and desperate for release.
> 
> …There was an inquest and a hearing, but in the end, no one blamed me for what I’d needed to do. Whatever had possessed the captain, be it… spiritual or bacterial, we couldn’t have saved him from it. I did request to be transferred to another hospital, but by then the casualties from the Front were coming in thick and fast, so I had to stay where I was.
> 
> I saw… some horrible things, during those four years. All those broken boys coming home, bodies and minds in pieces. And then after, with the Spanish influenza… But even now, it all seems to pale in comparison to the night I saw Gilbert Manningtree, more dead than alive, being dragged practically out of his grave to something he’d never wanted to go back to, and fighting it every step of the way.
> 
> I still see his eyes, sometimes, when I sleep. And then I wake up, gasping cold air.

_  
Statement ends._

**[silence]**

_Well. That’s… a very ominous account, all things considered. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a statement about a former Institute employee that was quite this… external, I suppose. Every other account has been direct from the employee’s mouth, alive or dead. Alive **and** dead. …From the slimness of the file, it doesn’t appear that any follow-up work has been done on Dr. Girdler’s account in the past eighty-eight years. Not that there’s much in the way of follow-up that I can actually **do** , right now. Unless… nngh… oh, shit, **again?** Really?_

**[tape clicks off]**

**[tape clicks on]**

_Well, that was… unpleasantly enlightening. Nosebleed notwithstanding, I was able to glean a little information from my… very still very begrudging patron._

_It seems that before joining the army, Gilbert Manningtree was… one of my predecessors. In 1901, he was appointed as Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute. It was a promotion for him, actually, as he had been an assistant to the previous Head Archivist, a Mr. Amos Thornley, for several years. Gilbert Manningtree, like most people associated with the Institute, had no family. His burial was paid for by the Institute and he’s buried in the same cemetery where Jurgen Leitner rested so briefly… I wonder if that’s how Jonah used to choose his Archivists… bring them up through the ranks, so to speak. As to what happened to Dr. Girdler after he brought this story to the Archives… the Beholding is silent on the matter._

_But it’s obvious enough, why this statement happened to be the one Martin chose. And perhaps even why it was included in the batch that Basira sent in the first place, though I doubt anyone thought I’d be reading it under these circumstances. Regardless, I believe the Eye is… sending me a message. Reminding me that while it might not control the world anymore… it still controls me._

**[tape clicks off]**


	18. Unseen Marks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys discuss what to do with Peter's remains, and have an unexpected visitor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings for human remains, guilt/responsibility, feelings of parental abandonment, clandestine burial, memories of family death, mention of weight loss, brief mention of disordered eating.
> 
> As always, thanks for reading and commenting. :)

Jon sighed as he put the kettle on and got out the tea things for Martin – he knew better than to try and make the tea himself; there were just some things Martin insisted on doing. “I wish I could say this was the most upsetting thing you’ve ever brought home, but I still don’t think anything’s going to top—”

“The worms?”

“Actually, I was going to say, the dog.” Jon came to stand beside Martin. He was sitting at the table, staring at the small collection of personal effects spread out over the checkered tablecloth. All that was left of an evil man’s life, save for the skeleton in Martin’s windbreaker. “Jane Prentiss was not your fault. The Corruption was going to get into the archives, one way or another. You just happened to be a… a useful vector. It could have been any one of us.”

“I know, I know, I just…” Martin shook his head. He reached for Jon’s hand and kissed it briefly, and went to make the tea.

The familiar, almost mechanical steps of preparation soothed him. The steam from the mugs was gentle and warm, richly scented, grounding him to where and when he was—home, safe, with Jon. By the time the tea was ready, he felt a little more like himself.

At any rate, he felt calm enough to sit down at the table with Jon and go through Peter’s things.

“I’ve got to admit, I don’t actually remember ever seeing Peter smoke,” he said, examining the short briar pipe.

“Hmm.” Jon sniffed briefly at the empty tobacco pouch. “Well, at least this explains the smell.”

“Smell? What smell?”

“In the tunnels. Sometimes when I went down there, while you were working with Peter, I’d occasionally catch a faint whiff of tobacco smoke. _This_ tobacco.”

“Ah.”

Their eyes turned to the boatswain’s whistle. Jon reached for it gingerly, then shook his head and motioned for Martin to take it. “Be careful.”

“Yes, dear,” Martin said, rolling his eyes. He turned the small scrawl of metal over in his big, deft fingers. “It’s… it’s just a whistle, Jon.”

“It’s more than that, though. In the right hands… I think we should destroy it. Knowing what it’s been used for…”

“Maybe…” Something prickled at the back of Martin’s neck, like sweat from a cold wind. “Then again,” he continued, wrapping the silver chain around the whistle and tucking it into the empty leather pouch, “maybe not yet.”

Jon looked at him keenly for a moment, then at the pouch.

“…Please don’t give yourself another nosebleed.”

Jon blinked. “Uh… right.” He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “I should be happy to _not_ have random information being air-dropped into my brain without warning, but it honestly just feels like I’ve been—well—blinded. Like I’ve lost one of my senses, at any rate.”

“I’m sorry,” said Martin quietly.

“It’s _not_ your fault. …Is that it?”

“No, there’s still his wallet.” Martin reached for the worn leather billfold and rifled through it. “Hmm… just the usual stuff. ID card, credit cards—I guess we probably shouldn’t use those.”

“Better not to,” Jon agreed, very amused. “We are still technically supposed to be in hiding.”

“Oh, but there’s like two hundred quid in cash. Right, pocketing that… Some business cards… receipts from the café round the corner from the Institute… and—huh.”

Martin fished round in one of the smallest compartments and pulled out a small folded piece of heavy paper. He unfolded it, and there in the palm of his hand, lay a photograph, faded and creased, of a blonde little girl maybe four or five years old. She stared at the camera, unsmiling, with eyes that made Martin gulp. “That’s… that’s her. That’s the woman I saw in the Observatory.”

“Peter’s daughter.”

“…He called her Rosanna. He didn’t remember his son’s name.”

“And he kept this… Strange behavior, for a Lukas. A memento, d’you think?”

“No,” said Martin shortly. “A memetic. He had to be reminded that he was a father. Not that it seems to have worked.”

Jon looked at the photo thoughtfully as he sipped his tea. “After what he said about his own childhood, maybe that was better for her.”

“Jon… I’m… I’m not part of the Lukas family, am I?”

Jon almost choked. “No,” he gasped, his eyes watering. “No, I… definitely not. Pretty sure that would’ve come up before now.”

“But you don’t Know, you’re not able to _Know_ things right now. So how—”

“Because you asked me about your father, remember? And I Know for a fact that he was very much _not_ a Lukas. He wasn’t part of any of the Fears. And you already know your mother wasn’t, so why—” Jon took a deep breath. “Can I ask why this is on your mind?”

“He… he did say he couldn’t remember his son’s name.”

“Martin,” said Jon, very gently. “You don’t look anything like him.”

“…Right.” And the inescapable truth was that he _did_ look exactly like his dad. Martin reached into his pocket, and then laid the closed spyglass on the table. “Peter said this was a Lukas family heirloom. That it’s not something I should be able to possess, unless… unless I’m part of the family.”

“Hmm.” Carefully, Jon reached for the small circle of mahogany and brass. As his hand got closer, the spyglass began to vibrate threateningly. “All right, all right, point taken,” he muttered, jerking back. “So. What, um. What are you going to do with the rest of… Peter?”

Martin sighed and looked down at the lumpy jacket bundle resting on the worn lino at his feet. “Dunno, exactly. Might go see if I can find a box in the attic or the tool shed to put them in, in the meantime.”

* * *

**[tape clicks on]**

Sounds of a knife on a wooden cutting board. A door opens.

“Martin, what do you want for… is that a spade?”

“Yep. I’m gonna do some digging in the back. Need a place to bury Peter’s bones.”

“In Daisy’s back garden?”

“Sure. I figure, if she ever comes back, she won’t mind knowing there’s a monster buried behind her house. I mean, it probably isn’t the first time.”

“…Right. So… what d’you fancy for dinner?”

**[tape clicks off]**

* * *

Martin knew the second he sank his spade into the long-disused tomato patch, which probably predated Daisy’s ownership of the place, that he wasn’t going to be able to dig a makeshift grave in a day, not even for the old wooden ammo crate that he’d found in the attic. It was considerably smaller than the average casket but it would do for a dry skeleton, and it didn’t need a big hole in the ground—and frankly, Martin was of the opinion that Peter didn’t even deserve a _small_ hole in the ground.

But he was digging one anyway. In cold, damp soil that clung to the blade of his spade and his boots and made him think painfully of his granddad.

Marcin Zima, his grandfather, had lingered a long time in the hospital before he’d died, and Martin’s final memories of the last person who had loved him, until Jon, were of a small, thin old man becoming smaller and thinner by the day.

It felt a bit like foreshadowing; he and Jon were thinner now than before the Change, though it was more noticeable in Jon, at least to Martin. There hadn’t been much to Jon before the end of the world, and now there was even less. And Martin felt… tired. All the time. Old and tired, and—how had Melanie described him? Diminished, that was it. Christ, he felt it, too. And now everything was shaken up and different, and they needed things like food and sleep again, and time to rebuild muscles that might as well have been in suspended animation or something, for as weak as his arms felt after only turning over a few clods of dirt.

“At least Jon _knows_ how to feed his spooky side, and he’s got a way to do it without actively hurting anyone. Mostly. But what am I supposed to do?” He paused to give himself a chance to catch his breath. He’d never been in the best shape but it seemed really unfair to have walked from the highlands to London and not even have some extra stamina to show for it. “I don’t know how to feed to power that I serve… either power. Christ, how does one person pledge themselves to _two_ different fear entities?”

“Talent, I imagine. Or accident. Dumb luck. Fate, if you like.”

Martin’s hands tightened on the handle of his spade. He recognized the voice… but at least it wasn’t Peter Lukas. “Can I help you?” he snarled, not looking up.

“Sorry,” said Oliver Banks, who at least had the decency to sound apologetic. “I know you probably want to be alone right now—”

“I do, actually.”

“—but I wanted to check in. Y’know. See how you’re doing?”

“Oh, I’m just _peachy_ ,” Martin said, and then swore when he hit a stone. He looked at the Death avatar in exasperation… and stopped. “Oh. You look… different.”

“Do I?”

“Yeah, you’re… uh… you look more normal? Than you did th-the… last time I saw you,” he fumbled, suddenly unsure if this Oliver Banks, who had appeared out of nowhere to sit so placidly on a rotting tree stump, was the same one he had encountered, or if he even remembered the Change, let alone its reversal. Martin leaned on his spade and studied his visitor. “You’re a lot more… I dunno, _lively_ , than you were back in the… the…”

“Corpse Roots. And yes, I do remember them. I remember it all… but it’s likely no one else will, so keep that in mind the next time you meet… well. Old friends.”

“Right. I will… remember that. Thanks.”

Oliver smiled. “Any time. So. You’re ‘peachy,’ you were saying?”

“Oh yeah. Totally. Life’s just a big bowl of cherries right now. Jon’s having a spat with the Eye, I’m digging a grave for Peter Lukas’s haunted bones, we just undid the apocalypse and our bodies apparently don’t know what to do with that fact—”

“And you’re not sure if you made the right choice,” Oliver finished. “For yourself or for Jon.”

“Wasn’t given much of a choice. To live as a monster or die as a human. But I made it, right or wrong. And… now I’ve got to figure out what that means.” He snorted softly. “Don’t suppose you’ve got any answers to that.”

“I’m afraid not,” said Oliver, almost gently. “These things have to be muddled through on an individual basis.”

“…Thanks for not saying ‘alone.’”

“Honestly, I thought it went without saying. But you’re not going to be alone for long, anyway.”

“I guess not. Not if you were able to find us so easily.”

“I wasn’t actually looking for you.” Oliver gestured to the scrape that Martin had managed to make in the garden. “I was looking for that grave.”

“O..kay…”

“But you’re not wrong about the others. You’re not going to be able to hide up here for much longer. And what you and Jon see when you look at each other isn’t going to be what others see anymore.”

“…Physically?”

“And metaphysically. You’ll need to be wary of that.”

Martin stepped on his spade with more than needed force. “Thanks for the tip.”

“I mean it. You two have been through a _lot_. And it’s not over yet.” Oliver leaned forward on his tree stump. “Alliances are forming, Martin. You have to decide who you’ll be able to trust with what you know.”

“Why don’t you just go in and talk to Jon?” suggested Martin, very sourly. “Since for a Death avatar, you’ve always been weirdly keen on making sure the Archivist lives.”

“I am not about to get between the two of you,” Oliver retorted, with a tart little smile, “not for anything. One death’s enough for anybody.”

And then he was gone.

* * *

“What do you think he meant?” Martin asked. They had eaten supper in companionable silence (once Peter’s bones were removed to the tool shed) and done the dishes together. Now he was stretched out on the sofa with Jon draped over him, and it was so comfortable he wanted to cry. “About us seeing something different when we look at each other, compared to what other people will see? I mean, obviously we look like we’ve been through hell, and… our bodies are still figuring out what to do with actual food again, but… did he mean something else?”

Jon was silent for a long time, and all the while his eyes were darting over Martin. “I think he could have meant a lot of things,” Jon said at last. “We’ve changed, Martin. You more than me. You’re… well, you’re marked.”

“By the Eye and the Lonely. And the Hunt, obviously,” Martin added, a hand going to the pale shadow of a scar on his throat.

“By more than just the Lonely and the Hunt. By everything. By all of Smirke’s Fourteen. Just by virtue of having traversed all their domains. The marks are much less overt on you than on me, but they’re absolutely there. Except…”

Martin waited, then rolled his hand in a ‘get on with it’ gesture.

“There are two other marks that are very plain. One of them…” Jon reached out and traced a finger in a line above Martin’s eyes, and then another line, below them. “Here. Like an invisible slash.”

“Like a blindfold,” said Martin, his mouth going dry. “The End.”

“Yes…”

“I… oh. Ohhh. Okay. I… heh. Wish I’d known that this afternoon—I’d’ve asked him a _lot_ more questions. And uh… and the other?”

“The other,” said Jon softly. “I can see on you like a fresh brand. You’ll probably be able to see it on me soon, as you become more… accustomed, to your powers. The Extinction.”

Martin gulped. “Oh… oh shit. Er… where is it? Because we only passed through the one Extinction domain and I—I mean, I did sit on that couch…”

“No, Martin,” said Jon, somehow managing to maintain a straight face, “the lovely couch did not leave a mark from a Dread Power on your lovely backside.”

“You are _insufferable_ ,” Martin muttered, turning bright red.

“I’m aware,” Jon chuckled, nuzzling his nose. “But… no, it—it’s all over you. And me, I think. Because we didn’t just walk through an Extinction domain, Martin… we lived through it.”

“Oh… oh! You mean—the entire apocalypse?”

Jon nodded. “I got so used to seeing it on the faces of every poor trapped person that after a while, I stopped noticing it, but… we’re the only ones left. There are people alive who’ve been touched by the Extinction as a fear, but you and I are the only ones in the world to bear the mark of experiencing a fifteenth power. It’s faint… all the marks left by the domains are faint, because as far as this reality is concerned, they didn’t happen. But the marks are still there, Martin.” His hand was cool and solid against Martin’s cheek, and his eyes glowed with power. “For anyone who knows how to look.”

“…Bet they’ll be confused as hell when they see us again.”

Jon blinked. “I suppose they will be,” he said, with a slow smile. He kissed Martin softly on the cheek. “Bedtime?”

“Yeah,” Martin sighed. “Or—actually, I should have a shower first. My arms are killing me and I feel really grimy.”

“Yeah, you are pretty gross right now. All that beach sand and digging clandestine graves.”

“Hey, _you_ don’t get to complain, you’re the one who climbed on top of me the second I laid down. Pity the shower here’s too small for two,” he added, with a little grin.

“Unfortunately, not even _I’m_ that scrawny,” said Jon wryly, “even if I was feeling up to co-showering tonight.” He gave Martin a proper kiss this time, soft and slow and adoring. “Go on, get clean. I’ll be in bed.”

They slept very solidly, and if either of them dreamed, at least neither one remembered them in the morning.

* * *

Martin had been digging again. It had been a week since their return – three or four days since Martin had returned from the beach with Peter’s bones – and the hole was slowly getting deep enough, but he still tired easily, and he refused to let Jon help. It was something he needed to do alone… and more than that, he needed to _be_ alone. When he’d become exhausted from digging, Jon had watched through the window over the sink as he had called up a fog and then slipped into the Lonely, without so much as a ripple of effort.

So now Jon was sitting alone in the kitchen, with Peter’s bones stacked on the table. He was… keeping watch, he supposed. Like an old-fashioned wake. Martin refused to have the skeleton near him again until he was ready to bury them, and whatever had allowed Peter’s ghost to manifest to Martin in the Lonely was either no longer present, or else Peter simply had no interest in speaking to Jon, so the bones were, for the moment, silent. The wooden box Martin had found was beside them, waiting to be filled, but for the moment, Jon was preoccupied, contemplating them and everything he and Martin had been through.

It was the first time Jon had found himself face-to-face with the remains of someone he had destroyed. In the domains, the avatars he turned the gaze of the Ceaseless Watcher upon were obliterated into nothingness. The Not-Sasha, Jude, Jared, Breekon… Only Peter Lukas had left enough of a body to be worth burying.

It wasn’t a pleasant reality to confront: that even before he had been subsumed by the Beholding, he’d had the ability to destroy someone from the inside out, if only they resisted enough.

He ignored the question of whether or not he had enjoyed Peter’s resistance and eventual death, and the terror that had arisen from both. He ignored the question because it was irrelevant, because he already knew the answer.

Whether he still had the power to do so was another question entirely. He could still sense the Eye, could still feel his connection to it, but it was incredibly muted. The Beholding, for lack of a better word, was _withholding_ itself from him, for some purpose.

Or not – the little Jon remembered from his time within the Eye itself, and could formulate into coherent recognizable thought, was that his dread master was focused simply on consumption, and preferred to obliterate anything that got in its way.

So the fact that he was still alive enough to be pondering his future, let alone to still be linked to the Eye, was evidence enough that he still served a function. Which had also been the message of the Girdler statement, about Jon’s unfortunate predecessor, Gilbert Manningtree.

He was getting the message, not exactly loud but definitely clear. And he wasn’t sure he liked that.

But… he had made his choice.

No… no, _Martin_ had made his choice.

 _Annabelle was right,_ Jon thought, staring intently at Peter’s skull but seeing a very different face. _I didn’t get a choice, not in this. It was always going to be made for me… either by Jonah, or by…_

The chair opposite him moved, and someone sat down. Jon looked up.

Elias Bouchard smiled at him. “Hello, Jon.”


	19. The Order of Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time to finish some old business.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Glitchingicarus’s illustration for Chapter 10 is up!](https://glitchingicarus.tumblr.com/post/635078906954858496/alright-then-lead-on-scooby-lets-go-solve-a) Yes, I know, this scene is entirely canon, I just included it in the fic... but in my defense, it is an adorable scene. ♥
> 
> You'll see that “Character Death” has been added as a tag. Yeah, that’s in this chapter. No, it's neither of the mains. It’s also not pretty. Please heed the chapter warnings and proceed accordingly.
> 
> Chapter warnings for: Guns, threats, manipulation, murder, blood, blunt force trauma, knives, clandestine burial, fire, intense mental stress. 
> 
> Thank you for reading and for kudos’ing and commenting. Not to get sappy or anything, but ilu all.

Jon was so utterly and completely taken aback by the sight of the last person he would have expected to see sitting at his kitchen table that he blurted out the very first thing that came to mind. “Aren’t you dead?”

Which was not eloquent in the least, but it was a fair question. He’d been unconscious when Elias—Jonah—had died at the Panopticon, before the Unchanging took hold, though Martin had explained how he was able to kill him, right at the end, and he had assumed without even thinking it through that Jonah—Elias—would continue to be dead.

Elias chuckled. “Oh, Jon. You’re not that lucky.”

“Apparently not.” Against his will, Jon glanced out the kitchen window, hoping that Martin had returned—and then changing his mind and hoping with every fibre of his being that Martin hadn’t come back yet.

Whatever was about to happen, Martin didn’t need to see it.

Because Jon was trapped, there in the cabin, with a man who had clearly come to see why his apocalypse was late. And Jon was…. Jon was tired. Powerless, and exhausted, and not going back to the hell realm he had just been dragged out of. So if this was how he was going to die… then so be it.

“Did you not See me coming?” Elias continued, chattily, as though he wasn’t pointing a pistol straight at Jon’s chest. Was it the same one he’d used to kill Gertrude? It was hardly necessary, anyhow; Jon very obviously posed no physical threat to him. “Understandable complacency, I suppose, but still, Jon… very sloppy. So caught up in being domestic that you let your guard down.”

Jon glanced down at the bones covering the kitchen table. “You have a very strange idea of domesticity.”

“I suppose I do,” Elias admitted, utterly unperturbed. He cast a brief, cold eye over the remains of his late associate. “Poor Peter. But he’s beyond help now. And really, why should his skeleton bother me? I’ve got a far bigger collection tucked away, back at the Institute. I’m amused that you and Martin decided to pick up on _that_ particular habit. But of course, the influence of the place is really very strong… and very hard to get away from.” Elias’s smile hardened. “But now you’ve had your little honeymoon in the highlands. It’s time to get down to some real work. The purpose you were always intended for.”

“ _Your_ purpose,” Jon snapped.

“No. _Our_ purpose, and that of our master. I know you’ve felt the pull of the Beholding, even hidden away up here.” Elias rose and, still keeping his eyes and his gun trained on Jon, stepped over to the coffee table where the stack of statements sat, beside a strangely quiet tape recorder, and began to rifle through the papers with his free hand. “I’ll admit, I’m impressed that you’ve been able to go a full month without a statement—but it’s no good you continuing to starve yourself, Jon. It’s time.”

“I…” For a moment, Jon was too confused to response. He knew he didn’t look healthy, but he’d just had a statement a few days before, and the lingering dread from poor Manningtree’s story was sustaining him adequately. He assumed that was because the Eye wasn’t interested in utilizing him, at the moment, but that there would come a time when he would need more statements, and god help him, _fresh_ statements, and—

Wait. Why did Elias not Know all of this already?

“…No.”

Elias raised his eyebrows. “‘No’? You seem to be under the impression that you have a choice.”

“Elias—no… no, not Elias. You’ve got no right to that name. That’s not who you are. Elias Bouchard died in 1996. You murdered him, along with James Wright before him, and Richard Mendelson before that, and all the others.”

“You’re being terribly pedantic. I should say I have as much right to those names as their previous owners did—more, even. I certainly made more of those names that the men who originally bore them ever would have. However, if you want to argue over semantics, be my guest.”

“Well then, _Jonah_ … I don’t know how you found us or what you plan to compel me to do, but I need to tell you…” Jon let out a tired little laugh. “If you’re intending to frighten me, it’s not going to work. My reservoir of fear is a bit low, at the moment. So you might as well just use that—” He gestured at the gun. “and get it over with.”

“…Not just yet. I would hate for Martin to come back and find such an… upsetting mess. Where _is_ Martin, by the way?”

“In the village,” Jon lied. “Probably on his way back right now.”

“Really? How very interesting. Because that’s the way I came… and I didn’t see him.” Jonah’s smirk somehow got even wider. “Poor Jon... Have you driven him away already?” He made a disappointed little tutting sound. “Only a month, and he’s left you to fend for yourself.”

His expert prodding of the fear of abandonment hit its mark, making the lingering ache throb, but Jon was too distracted by the implications of the question to notice. Jonah wasn’t merely trying to goad him, he was fishing for information… but he should already _Know_ where Martin was.

Jon reached, very carefully, for his connection to the Eye, and found it muted, as before… but more vigilant than it had been at any time since his return, aware and humming. He _felt_ the Dread Power’s presence, recognized the imprint of its possession of him on a cellular level, and though he didn’t dare attempt to Know anything, he was aware enough to sense that something was _very wrong_ with Jonah Magnus.

“How did you manage to make your way up here?” he demanded, taking refuge in curiosity as a way of stalling. That, at least, would not make Jonah suspicious. “You’re still a wanted fugitive.”

Jonah snorted softly. “I haven’t kept on good terms with the Lukas family for this long without having a few favours tucked away. And they’re not at _all_ happy about what happened to their most promising scion.”

“For which they blame me, I presume.”

“Of course. I naturally left out any part I played in Peter walking to his own death. Not that I blame you in the slightest for killing him,” Jonah added, entirely seriously. “He really shouldn’t have resisted you. But he was one of the Lonely. He couldn’t have done anything else.”

“No,” Jon murmured. “No, I suppose not…”

Jonah’s hand stilled on the papers, and he frowned. “The Hazel Rutter statement, Jon. Where is it?”

A slow, unpleasant smile curled the Archivist’s chapped lips. “You mean the invocation? Oh, it’s gone.”

“Gone, what do you mean, _gone_?”

“I mean,” repeated Jon, realization blooming in his mind like a flowerbud in spring, “we burnt it. After I read it.”

“After you… no.”

“Yes. It didn’t work. Again. You _failed_ , Jonah. Two attempts at rituals in two hundred years, and you’ve failed both.” Jon rose slowly from his chair, feeling an unmistakable surge of power from outside of himself. “And unlike the first time? This time, the Beholding’s abandoned you.”

A flash of something deeper than fear raced across Jonah’s face. “Don’t test me, Jon,” he snarled, brandishing the gun.

“Do you really think that’s going to hurt me now? After everything I’ve been through? After everything you caused me to suffer?” Jon took a step forward, as his eyes began to glow. “I _See_ you, Jonah. I See everything that you are, right now, in this moment… and you are _pathetic_.”

“Shut. Up.” Jonah’s voice shook but his hand was steady on the pistol, and he moved quickly, crossing the floor from the sofa to near the front door. “You’re nothing without me, Jon, and—”

“And you’re nothing without the Eye,” Jon snapped. “It promised you the Watcher’s Crown in return for a ruined world… but you were too greedy. You wanted all that suffering for yourself and your master, but you weren’t willing to pay for it, were you? Weren’t willing to feel the pain and the grief and the _guilt_ —because you can’t. There’s nothing left within you except greed and terror… and that’s not enough for the Eye.”

“It led me to you,” Jonah retorted, his voice rising in disbelief, and so focused was he on the terrifying sight before him that he never noticed the cold, creeping cloud of fog forming just behind where he stood. “It showed me the way.”

“It led you to the Archivist.” Jon’s lips curled back from his teeth, and his viridian eyes were cold even as they cast their hot, sickly light on this now-powerless man who had ruined his life, and the lives of so many countless others. “It led you to your doom.”

In spite of everything, Jonah managed to laugh. “You’re… you’re bluffing.”

“I’m not, actually. You see, Jonah… I’m terrible at poker.”

Jonah frowned and opened his mouth to speak, and at that same moment, Martin suddenly emerged from the Lonely with a blast of salt air and sand, brandishing the garden spade like a club, and before Jonah could turn, Martin smashed the heavy metal blade across the back of his head, crushing his skull and dropping him to the floor like a stone.

For a moment, no one spoke. There was only the sound of Martin trying to catch his breath, and the low animal grunts of the man on the floor, which quickly faded, along with the static.

“Christ!” Martin exploded, dropping the spade and staring at the inert form of his former manager. Then he jerked wide, worried eyes up at Jon. “Are you okay?!”

“I’m fine, Martin. He didn’t hurt me. He can’t hurt anyone anymore. The Eye… it’s released him.”

“It—wait, it can do that? How—nope, not the time. Oh _hell_ , look at the mess! Not good, not good, not—”

“Martin.”

He watched Martin shut up his panic for later. “Okay, we need to—take care of this. Jon, go get some towels. I’m going out to the shed.”

Jon got the towels. Martin returned from the tool shed with a familiar coil of rope and a roll of industrial-grade sheet plastic. “Of course Daisy would have industrial plastic in her shed. That’s… right, not thinking about the implications of that.”

“Best not to,” said Jon, pulling out long sheets of plastic.

They padded the crushed back of Elias’s head with towels, blindfolded him, gagged him (“Careful, he’s still breathing.”), tied his wrists and ankles and deposited him on the plastic-covered sofa.

And then they stood over him, bloody and nervous, and wondering what to do.

“Jon, how can he even _be_ here? I saw him die.”

“Oliver.”

“Wh—wait, what?”

“Oliver, he—he warned us that most people aren’t going to remember the Change because it’s all been undone. But I didn’t realize—Martin, the Unchanging didn’t just turn the world back: it _unkilled_ everyone who died. People in the Corpse Roots, in all the other End domains—all those deaths would have had to be reversed when the Web did whatever the hell it did. That’s why the End needed to be so intrinsically involved.”

“Which means… all the avatars you killed…”

“They’ve all been unkilled. Resurrected, whatever! The Not-Sasha, Jude, Jared Hopworth, Breekon…”

“And now Elias.” Martin stared at the bound, gagged, unconscious form huddled on their sofa. “Goddammit.”

“Yeah.”

“I guess I really should have asked the death guy more questions when he was actually here and bothering me.”

“Probably, yeah.”

“Is he dead?”

“No. Not yet, anyway. It’s only a matter of time.”

There was no question of trying to get medical treatment for him. It was only a question of letting him die slowly of bleeding in the brain… or of ending him.

“…We should kill him. Like, not to bring back the ‘Kill Bill’ theme but… we can’t let him go, Jon.”

“N—yes. No! No, wait. Martin, you—I saw you emerge from the Lonely _inside_ the cabin. Can you tell me how you did that?”

“I—yeah. It’s weird, I can kind of use it the way the Web’s shortcut worked? Like a-a scifi wormhole, I guess? It works as a sort of connection between two points, shortens the distance. I actually saw what was going on through the back window, but Elias had a gun and I wanted to sneak up on him, so—”

Jon interrupted him sharply. “If you use it to go to the village and make a phone call, can you do it quickly?”

“I—yeah, I think so. You mean without walking the two miles there and back? Yeah.”

“And without being seen?”

Martin nodded. “That’s the easy part.”

Jon crushed the feeling of despair that those words brought to him. “Right, I need you to call Basira. It’s been, what, a week? Since you got the statements? So she’ll be expecting you to check in anyway. Tell her to evacuate the Institute.”

“Wha—evacu… oh hell.”

“Just in case.”

“Oh Christ… the Panopticon. Killing Jonah, it’ll—”

“If he was right, it _might_ destroy the remains of the prison completely, and take the Institute with it.” Jon took a breath. “And the Archive.”

“But that might kill _you_!”

“Yes,” Jon agreed, “it might.” He kissed Martin softly. “Go call Basira, please.”

He was only alone with Elias for ten minutes, but between the bloodied, raggedly breathing form on the sofa and the bones still stacked on the kitchen table, time might as well have stopped. Jon sat perched on the edge of the low wooden coffee table, and watched.

It was all he could do.

The front door opened and Jon yelped, jumped across the room and huddled himself into a corner. “Oh god, _Martin_.”

“Sorry, sorry!” Martin closed the door and stood there awkwardly, apologies written all over his face. “I, um, I thought this’d be less horrifying? Than me just stepping out of a cloud of fog?”

“It’s… it’s fine, I’m fine. I’m just… What did Basira say?”

“Gotta say this for Basira, sometimes, it’s really nice that she doesn’t ask too many questions. I explained the-the situation, and she just asked for about a half an hour to clear out the building before we… take care of this. There’s only been a handful of people working there, this past month.”

“Right. So… how exactly are we going to do this?”

“…Slit his throat, I guess,” Martin decided, pale but resolute. “We can do it outside, where the bl… where it won’t make as much of a mess. He’s half-dead already from that crack on the head, and I don’t—I don’t think I fancy bashing his head the rest of the way in. Daisy’s got a very… comprehensive collection of hunting knives, in the attic.”

Jon pressed his fingers to his eyelids for a moment, and when he opened his eyes, they were glowing a very faint green—not the with the same intensity as Martin had seen in the domains, but enough to show that Jon was Knowing something. Or having Knowledge forced on him, judging by the pained look on his face. “We have to take out the eyes first, and—and the optic nerve. Those have to be destroyed separately from the rest of him. Otherwise…” He grimaced. “Let’s just say, they’ve got a life of their own.”

“Right. Um. How do we do that?”

“I’ll do it,” Jon said, his voice drained of all energy and feeling. “I… Know how. Let’s… let’s get him outside.”

* * *

That task done, they… dispatched… what remained of Elias. He was still thankfully unconscious, and when Martin finally slit his throat… well, after the smashed head, that was perhaps the easiest death they could have afforded him.

His bound limbs barely twitched as his blood drained away into the freshly turned soil, until finally… they stopped.

"Well," said Martin, "he's gone. And you're not, thank god."

"No." To Jon’s weary surprise, he realized he was crying.

Martin let out a heavy sigh. “So I guess I should… go back to the village? Call Basira again, see if the Institute is still standing?”

There was a very slight hum of static. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary… No… no, the—the Institute and its foundations are as strong as ever.”

The glow vanished abruptly, leaving Jon slumped against Martin’s side.

Martin held Jon’s shoulders until he was steady on his feet. “So Jonah was lying, all that time.”

“No,” said Jon, his voice and eyes distant and sad. “No, it was the truth, before.”

“And now?”

“Now, it’s… me. Just me. I’m the avatar the Beholding has chosen. I’m the Archivist. I’m the Archive.”

“I thought you said it was angry with you—I mean, as angry as it can be—”

“It is. It remembers the Change, and the Unchanging, and the trick we played on it. It’s going to be angry with me for a long time… but it still chose me, all those years ago. And when I confronted Jonah in the Panopticon, I accepted that. There’s no going back, Martin. Not for me.”

Martin didn’t reply for a long time, only rubbed Jon’s shoulders and stared at the bloody ground. “I’m gonna build a fire,” he said at last.

While he gathered wood and kindling for a bonfire, Jon steeled himself and rolled Elias’s body into its back. It took an effort, on his part; although not much taller than Jon, Elias had been in far better training, and was heavy with muscle that Jon had never had, even when he wasn’t recovering from former fear godhood. After all, Elias had once beaten a man to death with a length of lead pipe…

A sudden memory rose up before Jon’s eyes, of accepting the position of Head Archivist and shaking Elias’s hand. He’d been so elated at the unexpected opportunity, and so _scared_ of letting Elias down… so determined not to fail the one person who was willing to give him a chance.

“So much for good intentions,” Jon muttered, cutting the ropes from around the corpse’s wrists and ankles.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing. Come on, help me get his clothes off. He’ll decompose faster, that way.”

As they stripped him, their eyes were irresistibly drawn to his left leg. The skin of Elias’s left calf was horribly twisted and mangled, as though it had been flayed at some point in the past, and had healed badly.

Martin gagged at the sight. “Jesus! It looks like it’s been through a meat grinder! What the hell happened to do _that_?”

“I have no idea,” said Jon grimly. “And I’m not getting any convenient answers for this one.”

Between the two of them, they managed to enlarge the hole in the back garden enough to bury both Elias and the box containing Peter’s bones, as well as the pistol, just to be on the safe side, and by the time the sun set, the grave was well filled in.

“Good, job done. Now the partners-in-horrible-crimes get to share a bed.”

“Definitely isn’t the first time.”

“And I definitely didn’t need to know that,” said Martin, appalled.

Jon grimaced. “Neither did I, quite frankly. Nice to know the Eye’s sense of humour is still intact. Never did want to give me anything useful at any appropriate moment.”

While Martin built the bonfire over the grave, and burned Elias’s bloody clothes and whatever identifying papers were in his pockets, Jon went inside. He undressed and left his own filthy clothes to be destroyed, and then stepped into the shower cubicle and ran the water as hot as he could stand.

Distantly, he heard muffled screaming from outside, and deduced that Martin’s earlier panic had refused to be bottled up for any longer. He didn’t blame him at all.

Jon had felt something… go out of the world, when he’d destroyed Jonah Magnus’s eyes. When he’d smashed them under a rock and heard them squelch like split grapes. He had watched the terror in those disembodied orbs grow and grow, and when the rock came down, a scream of utter agony had torn through the clearing, loud enough to send the cows in the lower meadow lowing and stamping in confused fear.

And then… silence. And _absence_ , a gaping hole in the settled order of things. Jonah had been part of the world for two hundred years, part of the… part of the web of reality, Jon thought, deliberately choosing the word. It was true enough, at least in one sense, and might even be true in the other.

Nature, it was said, abhorred a vacuum. But whatever blank space Jonah’s death had left, the world… didn’t feel all that bothered by it.

No, the tears that streamed down Jon’s face now were not for Jonah. For Elias, the true Elias, so long dead? Maybe. For Jon himself? Also possible. For Martin? Martin undoubtedly had his fill of saltwater, but if Jon wanted to cry for the one he loved, there was no better place to do it than where they would be immediately washed away by the clean, scalding spray.

Regardless of why, Jon cried, stifling his sobs in his hands, lest the force of his grief cause the wall of the cabin to shatter.

* * *

When Jon came downstairs, wearing boxers and an oversized sweatshirt that was definitely not his, Martin was making tea, and there were sandwiches on the table. Jon glanced at the clock in surprise.

“Oh! I-I didn’t realize I was in there so long. …I don’t think I left you any hot water, I’m sorry.”

“Eh, it’s okay, I’ll just… boil up another kettle and scrub off like that,” said Martin, tiredly smiling as he suited actions to words. “I get dibs on the shower tomorrow night.”

“Yes,” Jon agreed, managing a tiny smile of his own. He curled his hands around his mug with some difficulty; his burn scars ached terribly from all the exertion. But the warmth felt good. He ate a sandwich for form’s sake, and Martin did the same, but neither was especially hungry.

When the kettle was hot, Martin took it into the bathroom, and Jon followed him. “Can I stay?”

“…Jon, you’re exhausted.”

“I am, yes. Please? Unless you want to be alone.”

Martin looked at him softly for a moment, and then began to undress, pulling his shirt off over his head.

“We could just... not go back,” he said as he washed himself with hot water from the kettle and cold water from the basin, and soap and a flannel. “Stay here a little longer, and then… move on.”

“We are… what we are, Martin.” Jon leaned heavily in the doorway, afraid that if he sat down on the lid of the toilet, he would fall off. “We can’t escape that. Especially not now.”

“But we deserve a break, Jon. A rest, a-a _real_ rest. Maybe even a permanent one. We could do the things we talked about before. Go back to school, get some cats… just be together. Just _be_ , and not worry about other monsters.”

“That sounds wonderful... but I don’t think I have that option, anymore. To just walk away from a situation that I helped create while saying, ‘Well, I guess my work here is done,’ and try to go have a normal life?” Jon shook his head, strands of still-damp hair falling into his eyes. “No. This is mine now. It’s... it’s _for_ me.”

“But we _fixed_ it.”

“Yes, something that I caused to be awful! Both of us did, if it comes to that. Through all of our choices. We didn’t know what the outcome would be, because we couldn’t. That doesn’t absolve us of the responsibility… and I don’t think it should.”

Martin held out the flannel to Jon and then turned around.

“And we didn’t fix _anything_ ,” Jon continued, washing Martin’s broad, lightly freckled back. “We only made it _less bad_. The world is exactly the same as it was when we left it. The only difference now is that we _both_ have power that we didn’t have before. We have… we understand, Martin. We Know. And we might’ve been able to bring the world back to the status quo but we can’t unknow what we saw and felt and _did_. We have the knowledge and the tools to—well, you said it. To change the rules and remake the game. And I can’t tell you what decision to make… but I know what I need to do.”

“…And you’re sure it’s the right choice?”

“I have absolutely no clue.” Long, careful fingers traced the line of Martin’s spine, and then Jon pressed a kiss to the damp skin between his shoulder blades. “But it’s the right choice for me. …I think it’s the only choice for me.”

Martin let out a soft little sigh. “Right, then.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s… it’s nothing you need to apologize for. We’ve both made our choices. Just… can we stay a few more days?”

“I think so. I think… I think I’ll Know, when it’s time to go.”

* * *

It was another week before Martin managed the trip back to the village, on foot, this time, and with Jon accompanying him. It was a rare and beautiful autumn day, sunny and cool, and they were in no hurry. They walked slowly, arm in arm, Jon leaning on Martin when he needed to, and even when he didn’t.

When they got to the center of the village, Martin deposited Jon on a bench. “You rest a bit, hmm? I’ll run into the shop and give Basira a call. Shouldn’t be long.”

Jon smiled up at him. “All right.”

“D’you think you’ll be okay?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“I mean it. If someone comes along—”

“I’m _fine_ , Martin,” Jon said again. “I’m… not hungry.”

“…It’s been almost a week since you read a statement.”

Jon wanted to look away from Martin’s gaze, from those beautiful, probing, caring eyes. He didn’t. “Jonah Magnus,” he said softly, “was a very frightened man, when he died.”

He watched as understanding, horror, pity, regret, and finally acceptance, all played over Martin’s face in the space of a single breath. And then Martin bent down and pressed a kiss into Jon’s graying hair. “I won’t be long, love,” he murmured.

Martin disappeared into the little village grocery shop and emerged a few minutes later with a full canvas bag, which he set on the bench next to Jon. He kissed his hair again, touched Jon’s face briefly, and then headed for the phone box to call Basira.

Jon was still on the bench when Martin returned a second time, but now there was large black-and-white cat purring on his lap. “Made a friend, I see,” Martin smiled.

“I really don’t know how they all find me,” said Jon, petting the cat and working hard to sound annoyed. “That call took longer than I expected – everything okay?”

“Yeah, fine, everything’s fine at the office. Police are gone and people are starting to come back from leave.”

“Business as usual, then?”

“Mostly, I guess—I mean, as usual as it ever gets there. Just… something weird came up. I think it’s just normal bureaucracy-weird, but… god, I dunno, it’s the Institute.”

“I know, we can’t even do bureaucracy in a mundane fashion.” Jon waited. “What was it? The bureaucratic weirdness.”

“Basira mentioned that there was someone from Research who’d been asking if I was back yet, that he had a question he needed to ask me but that it wasn’t about permission to renew online newspaper subscriptions. Someone called Nicholas MacCallion. I don’t think I ever met him… ring any bells for you?”

Jon thought for a moment, then shook his head. “No… not in my own memory, at least.”

“And nothing from the Eye?”

“Nope. Apparently, since the world’s not ending anytime soon, I no longer need to have access to all the information pertaining to the cosmos since the Big Bang. I could try pushing it, but—”

“No,” said Martin hastily. “Let’s not do that again. Don’t need you getting a giant nosebleed in the middle of the village.”

“That, yes. Also between the nosebleeds and the clothes we had to burn, I’m going to run out of clean shirts if I keep doing that. We’ll need to make a run to the launderette soon anyway… what?”

Martin worried at his lower lip for a second or two. “Jon… I think you’re right. I think we need to go back. Like, sooner, rather than later.”

“Oh! Uh, I uh… fuck,” said Jon tiredly. “I know I said… I just… I thought we’d have a little more time. Right. So. You think this… MacCallion is dangerous?”

To his surprise, Martin snorted. “Uh, no. He reminds me of me when I started at the Institute – jumpy and desperate to keep his head down."

“You spoke to him?”

“Yeah. Turns out he was willing to tell Basira he needed to talk to me, but he wouldn’t actually tell her what the problem was. And he stood his ground about it.”

“Against Basira? And he’s still alive enough for you to talk to?”

“Alive and kicking. Or at least he was five minutes ago.” Martin stretched out a hand for the cat to sniff. “He told me that he was hired by Elias maybe a month before the Unknowing, for a job in Research. Here’s the funny bit: he was actually angling for a job in the Archives. Said he liked the idea of the footwork involved.”

Jon snorted. “Lucky bastard, then, to have steered clear of it.”

“That’s the thing: he didn’t. Elias specifically _requested_ that he go into Research. Apparently he’s got some very good credentials. He took a first in History at Balliol and has a side gig doing genealogies for people. Tracing family trees, tracking down long-lost relatives and potential half-siblings.”

The cat vacated Jon’s lap in favor of Martin’s larger, more well-padded one, and Jon spared a moment to be put out about that. “So… Elias hired an Oxford-trained historian and experienced genealogist, to work in Research. I don’t quite see…”

“Yes, but also no. According to MacCallion, he’s had almost nothing to do with the main business of the Institute. He’s barely even set foot in the building, since he was hired. He’s spent the last, what, two years? Working remotely on one specific project for Elias. And he was trying to get in touch with me because he wants to know what he’s supposed to do with all the material he’s gathered. And Rosie and Basira both gave him _my_ name, because apparently they’ve decided that in the absence of Elias or Peter, _I’m_ the one running the Magnus Institute now, and frankly, Jon, that thought terrifies me more than, like, anything else we’ve dealt with. Combined.”

Jon reached out and took Martin’s hand. The cat, offended at no longer being the focal point of their attention, jumped down and strutted away. “We’re not…” He took a deep breath. “You’re not bound to the Institute anymore, you know. Elias is gone— _Jonah_ is gone. You don’t have to step into their shoes.”

“The shoes are the least of my worries. As long as I get to keep my own eyes… keep myself…” Martin swallowed. “Besides, you’re still there.”

“I can’t go anywhere else.” Whether that was something the Eye wanted Jon to Know or if it was something he simply understood because of the tug in his bones, it was the plain truth. “And you haven’t been an Archival Assistant for a long time.”

Martin laced his fingers with Jon’s. “Maybe not officially, but I’d still say I’m bound to the Archivist, all the same. Although speaking of, why d’you think Elias didn’t just put MacCallion into the Archives? Or at least the library? If all he was doing was research…”

“Probably because he didn’t know if I was going to live or die. Elias had more faith in my ability to survive than I did myself, but… there was no guarantee. Not then.” He rubbed his thumb gently over Martin’s knuckles. “Not now.”

“Jon, don’t.”

“I just mean, I’m not invulnerable anymore. I know Oliver isn’t going to bother us, it’s not his style, but if no one else remembers the ruined world…” Jon trailed off. “What?”

“Why do you do that.”

“Do what?”

“Call the avatar of the End ‘Oliver’ so casually, like you’re friends or something.”

“You call the Distortion ‘Helen’ like it’s her name or something.”

“That’s different and you know it.”

“The only difference is that you met that particular avatar of the End and decided he was better-looking than you, so that means I must prefer him to you”

“That’s—that’s not fair!”

“It really isn’t,” Jon agreed, a slow smile creeping across his face. “But I do enjoy seeing how flustered you get whenever I bring him up.”

“Making me jealous of Death is—well, it’s frankly ridiculous, is what. But it’s _mean_ , Jon!”

“A little. But it still… well. Warms my heart to know that you think I’m worth getting jealous over.” Martin blushed even redder, and if they hadn’t been in a public place, Jon would have leaned over and kissed him for a very long time. Instead, he just looked at Martin, and drank him in while he composed himself. “Why did you say you thought it was time to go back to the Institute?”

“Wha… oh!” Martin blinked and cast himself back to the start of the conversation. “Because of what MacCallion was researching for Elias.”

“Which was?”

“The genealogy of Jonah Magnus. Specifically, he was looking for descendants of the original Magnus family.”

“Oh, that’s…” Jon sat bolt-upright on the bench, as for a second or two his eyes glowed a vibrant, otherworldly green. “Oh god.” His good mood disappeared like cheap paper in a flame. “Yes, we… we need to get back to London.”

“Right,” said Martin, offering a hand to help him stand. “I’ll get the laundry together, then.”


	20. Excitement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trip back to London is very long, Jon is very tired, and Martin... Martin is very... tense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one took so long; the last couple of weeks have been A Slog, lemme tell ya what. 
> 
> While I’ve been fighting with this chapter, glitchingicarus has been busy! Check out their amazing illustrations for [Chapter 11](https://glitchingicarus.tumblr.com/post/635907000048451584/keep-it-safe-for-what-for-the-ending-of) and [Chapter 12](https://glitchingicarus.tumblr.com/post/636449999602991104/jons-eyes-not-the-archivists-eyes-but-jons)! And an extra thank you to glitchingicarus for the tarot explanation that appears in this chapter. 
> 
> No warnings that I can think of, but let me know if there's something I ought to tag for.
> 
> Thank you as always for reading, and for all the kudos and comments. I am powered by comments, om nom nom. ♥

**[tape clicks on]**

“Is he okay?”

“He’s fine, Basira. Well. He will be. He’s not hurt, just very… disoriented.” A moment of silence. “Everything that’s happened… it hasn’t hit him, yet.”

“Exactly what _did_ happen down there, Jon?”

“Uh… a lot. The short version is that yes, Elias really is hosting the soul of Jonah Magnus, whose immortal but desiccated body is sitting in the Panopticon and—and powering the Institute, so to speak. Martin refused to kill Jonah and take his place when Peter told him to. He sent Martin into the Lonely, I followed Martin into the Lonely and brought him back. And… I killed Peter Lukas.”

“…Damn.”

“Yeah.”

“What about Elias? You saw him?”

“Yes. He was there… taunting Peter. But he was gone when we emerged from the fog.”

“And Jonah Magnus’s… uh… husk?”

“Still sitting in the Panopticon. I wasn’t about to touch him. What about you? And… Daisy, is she?”

“I… I don’t know. She went after the Hunters, and the—the Sasha thing. She hasn’t come back yet, but neither did Julia or Trevor, so… guess I’m just gonna wait.”

“I’m sorry to leave you, Basira but I can’t stay— _we_ can’t stay. We need to get away, put some distance between us and the Hunters, and the Not-Sasha. And Elias.”

“Both of you?”

“Both of us. I’m not leaving him alone again. I just have no idea where to go.”

“I’ve got a place.” The sound of keys. “Here. It’s to a cabin in Scotland.”

“Uh… where in Scotland?”

“Middle of nowhere. Lots of cows. I don’t want to say where.”

“Wh—oh! Right. Thanks. You just… happen to carry a key a cabin in Middle of Nowhere, Scotland at all times?”

“…It’s Daisy’s. A safehouse. Very off the beaten path.”

“Ah.”

“She’s got a few others but she gave me the key to this one. In case of my own emergencies. Give me a sec, I’ll write down the directions…”

“No, I kn... I’m sure I’ll find it.”

“But—oh. Right. …You and Martin, you’d better get going fast. Run home, pack, grab the next train north as soon as you can, before the cops show up looking for Elias. If they haven’t already noticed he’s missing from his cell, they’ll notice soon. The Institute is the first place they’ll check, and—look, Julia and Trevor left a huge mess upstairs. There are bodies. I’m surprised emergency services aren’t here already. So you two need to get out.”

“Probably, yes. …You should come with us. Julia and Trevor, they’ll be looking for you, too.”

“No. Thanks, but not interested in being a third wheel. Besides... I made her a promise. And I need to keep it. I need to be able to keep it.”

“Right. Good luck, Basira.”

“Sure. ...You too.”

**[tape clicks off]**

* * *

They went to bed almost as soon as the sun set, and woke the next morning long before it was due to come up, but they both felt strangely awake. Not quite excited—neither of them was exactly looking forward to returning to London—but aware and anticipating, like a pair of exposed wires waiting for someone to stumble into them.

“Why the Hanged Man?” asked Martin as they finished packing the last of their things.

“Hmm?”

“The tarot card. The one Nathanial Thorp gave you.” Martin picked up the small, faded, old-fashioned card from the top of the bedroom bureau and studied it briefly before holding it out to Jon. “What d’you think he meant by it? I mean, apart from the whole ‘change the rules, change the game’ thing.”

Jon set down the rest of the clothes he’d been in the process of packing and took the card carefully. It was painfully plain that it was old—it was thick paper, roughly printed, with soft foxed edges and stains that discouraged identification. “It depends on how it’s drawn, but the general meaning of the Hanged Man is ‘coming at things from a new direction.’

“If it’s drawn upright, with the man’s head at the bottom, it’s an indication that there’s a moment coming where you’ll need to realize… you have to change what you’ve been doing, and you have to surrender to that change in order to find a new path forward.”

“Well that’s… that hits a bit close to home,” said Martin, wrinkling his nose.

“A little, yes.” Jon rotated the card, so that the world was upside-down and the man appeared to be upright. “But if the image is inverted, that’s a sign that you’re ignoring the need to pause and reassess, that you’re throwing yourself into whatever you’re doing and running in every direction but not actually looking at the real issues. It’s a warning that you’re paying too much attention to ‘how things should be’ and resisting ‘how things actually are.’”

“So… it’s about surrender.”

“It’s…” Jon stared at the worn image, its colours printed off-center of its linework, and took a deep breath. “It’s about knowing the limits of the situation, and working with them.” He slipped the card carefully into the envelope containing the stack of statements, and wedged it into his knapsack.

“Okay. That’s… well, I can see why the End would want you to keep that in mind, I guess.” Martin frowned as he turned over the concept in his mind, and then shrugged. “So how do you know so much about tarot cards? Because that wasn’t the Eye, that was all you.”

“I—It’s just basic knowledge of esoterica. I mean, the major and minor arcana are literally part of the Institute’s employee handbook.”

“True, _but_ the employee handbook never went into that much detail about any of the cards, and it’s not like the Institute was focused on divination, sooo…”

“Um.”

“Jon?” Martin’s growing grin was positively wicked. “Why do you know so much about tarot cards?”

“I, um… went through a bit of a-a witchy phase, at uni? I’m shocked I remembered this much.”

“You’re _joking_ ,” said Martin delightedly. “Was this before or after your ‘ride the carousel at London Zoo’ phase?”

“Oh, years before… And don’t look at me like that! I tried a lot of things when I was a student.”

“Never would’ve thought you were the type to be into crystals and fortune-telling and spells.”

Jon rolled a shoulder uncomfortably. “I was. Heh. Curious. I was also very much _not good_ at it.”

“No,” said Martin. “You’re not the kind of person to just take things on faith.” An odd expression passed over Jon’s face, half wry and half worried. “What?”

“I don’t think about my university days much, but… I suppose it’s a good thing I was just being my usual irritating and inquisitive self, rather than actively seeking out potential systems of worship, and community to go with it. I might have ended up a lot more lost and afraid than I did. And a lot more vulnerable to being taken advantage of than I already was.”

“That’s— _oh_.” Martin remembered what people like Jane Prentiss and Natalie Ennis had been looking for through their faiths, and what had found them instead. He gulped reflexively. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” said Jon. He and Martin looked at one another in silence for a handful of breaths. “Let’s finish packing.”

There were a few other odds and ends to pack, things that Martin hadn’t arrived with and couldn’t exactly leave behind. After a bit of searching, he found an old cigar box in the shed that would hold the apple from Hill Top Road (which still looked absolutely fresh and pristine), as well as the collapsed spyglass and the leather tobacco pouch with the boatswain’s whistle. He went downstairs into the kitchen for newspapers, and wadded some sheets of newsprint into the corners of the box to keep the objects from shifting around and shoved the box into his knapsack.

Unable to help himself, Martin kept glancing out the kitchen window, wanting to make sure that the garden was still well-covered with branches and bracken and that he couldn’t see any inconvenient ghosts, but forgetting each time that it was still dark out, and that he couldn’t see anything outside at all.

“I checked around upstairs,” said Jon, coming down with a bag slung over his shoulder and another in each hand. “It looks like we got everything.”

“Yeah, I did the same down here. We’re all packed, I think. Except for that.” Martin gestured to the tape recorder on the coffee table. “Should you read a statement before we go?”

“I think I’m good, actually.”

“Still? It’s been well over a week now, since the Manningtree one.”

“Yeah, but… Jonah…”

A muscle in Martin’s cheek jumped. “Right. Any idea how much longer that’s going to hold you over?”

“I’m afraid not.” Jon put the tape recorder into his bag and zipped it shut. “I just hope I can hold out til we’re back at the Institute. I really don’t relish the thought of locking myself in a train toilet for twenty minutes while I try to record a statement in peace.”

“Right. So… that’s it, then.” Martin put on his jacket, slung the straps of both duffel bags over his shoulders, one over either shoulder so the straps crossed over his chest, and then shrugged into his knapsack. “Dishes are washed and put away, toilet’s clean, rubbish is out… we’re all set.”

“You’ve got the tickets you bought yesterday?”

“Yep, bus and train, purchased at appalling prices. Thank you, Peter and Elias, for carrying around ridiculous amounts of cash in your pockets.” Martin looked at the clock and groaned internally. Not wanting to wash anymore dishes, he hadn’t even put the kettle on. “Christ, I hope the bus stops at an all-night café somewhere along the way, I am _dying_ for a cuppa… Jon?”

“Hm?”

“You okay?”

“I’m…” Jon sighed. “Is it strange to feel loss over this place? Over leaving? I mean, yes, it was a prison for a while, but before that, it was…” He trailed off, unable to give voice to the words crowding in his throat.

It was where he and Martin had spent their first night together. Where they had shared their first kiss, and said their first ‘I love you’s, and learned how to touch one another, and even a little bit of how to live together.

“It… might well be the last time we get a bit of peace together, for a _very_ long time and…”

“Jon? Jon. Hey.” Martin leaned his forehead against Jon’s and laced their fingers together. “This here? This is peace. If it’s all we get… then we make the most of it.”

Jon let out a slow breath. “Even if we have to fight the world?”

“ _Especially_ if we have to fight the world,” Martin promised.

“Okay,” said Jon softly. “Let’s go.”

* * *

They caught the bus at four forty-five in the morning. It was a two-hour ride to Aberdeen. The bus stopped repeatedly – over a hundred times, by Jon’s count, though he knew better than to share that information with Martin – but never long enough for them to dash out for tea from one of the coffee shops in any of the towns and villages they passed through.

Jon very much hoped they would have time to get something caffeinated before catching the train from Aberdeen. Martin without his morning tea did not make for an easy traveling companion. At least he didn’t pull away, when Jon laid his head on Martin’s well-padded arm. Instead, Martin sighed and drew Jon closer against his side.

He had suggested, before their hasty travel plans had been finalized, if Martin thought he could use the Lonely as a shortcut to get them to London more quickly, the way he had used it to surprise Elias. “Normally, I wouldn’t suggest it,” Jon had clarified apologetically, “but—well, it’s a godawful long trip.”

“No, it’s—it’s fine.” But it was plainly not fine. “I… think I could do it, if it was just me. Maybe. Not sure it’d be safe for you to go back in there.”

“You brought me through it once.”

“Yeah, while you were unconscious!” Martin had scrubbed a hand through his reddish curls and focused hard on the train timetable he’d brought back from the village. “And I’m—I’m not really comfortable with you encouraging me to use these new powers.”

“…Right. Right, of-of course. You’re right, I’m sorry. I—honestly, I should know better.”

“Just a bit. I mean, yeah, it’d be convenient, we’d probably get to London faster—assuming we found our way out at all—but… I just used it to kill someone. Even if it was someone I hated. Like, I’m not _sorry_ Elias is dead. But he was still a person, sort of. And I’m… I don’t think I’m ready to face that, yet.”

“You’re… going to have to, eventually,” Jon had said, with every drop of his exhaustion plain in his voice. “You have patrons to feed.”

“I’m _fine_ , Jon. It’s been almost two weeks since we’ve been back, and I’m fine. I haven’t needed anything.”

“Haven’t you?”

Jon watched as understanding and horror washed over Martin like a pale wave. “No.”

“I told you. Jonah Magnus died a very frightened man. But he was also a very lonely one. That—that wasn’t a solitary meal,” Jon had continued, pressing on even though he felt sick to his stomach, but he needed to make sure that Martin understood. “I wasn’t the only avatar present and feeding on Jonah’s death. Didn’t you feel it? You—”

“I _get it, Jon._ ” Martin had stood up abruptly from the table and moved towards the stairs. “I’m going to go start packing.”

“Do you want help?”

“ _No._ ” Then, “Not right now, I’ll… I’ll let you know.”

Jon hadn’t pressed the issue, instead occupying the time before bed with putting together an early dinner with the last of their groceries.

The subject wasn’t raised again until they were finally seated on the train from Aberdeen to Edinburgh, with tea in to-go cups nestled gratefully in their hands. “Thank god,” Martin sighed, just breathing in the steam as he huddled over his cup.

Jon grunted in agreement and rubbed his temple with his free hand.

“Jon? You okay?”

“Define ‘okay.’”

“Don’t be a dick, Jon, or I promise, I _will_ be a dick in return. …Do you feel hungry?”

“No… no, I don’t think so. Tired, definitely. I haven’t felt this exhausted since we visited Georgie and Melanie’s place, back in… well. Before. And I’ve got a hell of a headache. My brain is literally vibrating inside my skull.”

“Hopefully the caffeine will help. And I’ll grab some biscuits or something when the tea trolley comes round.”

“Mm. What about you? Do you feel… How are you feeling?”

“…Not hungry, I don’t think. I… I’ll know, won’t I? Before I do… whatever… before I do something I’ll regret?”

Jon took a sip of his tea, and grimaced. Train teas served a function but they were never exactly pleasant. “I hope so. I didn’t, the first few times. And then after… well, thankfully I had people looking out for me.” He looked up at Martin and was relieved to see that his eyes were still warm and full of colour, neither quite blue nor green but some indeterminate shade of both, and to his delight, with the old gold flecks glinting under the florescent light. “You will, too.”

Martin didn’t smile, but he relaxed visibly over his tea. “I hope so. I feel… I dunno… restless? Jittery, I guess? Been feeling it since we left the cabin. But not in a bad way, exactly and… no, nope, I take it back, it’s probably very bad. But it doesn’t feel _dangerous_. Does that make any sense?”

“It does,” said Jon, a bit grimly. “It’s the Eye.”

“Right, so yes, very bad.”

“I mean… normal-bad, I suppose, for the Beholding. It feels… it’s excited that we’re going back.”

“…Excited.”

“Mm. That’s as near as I can get to describing it.”

Martin frowned as he sipped his tea, not even noticing how vile it was. Or possibly not caring; Jon knew from his own attempts at making a brew for his boyfriend that Martin would drink almost anything calling itself ‘tea’ if there was no chance of anything better. And he knew, because he remembered inadvertently Knowing as they trudged across the ruined world, a lifetime ago, that if the tea ran out and there was no money for more that week, Martin would simply drink hot water, and try to forget that it wasn’t tea.

Swallowing a hard lump in his throat, Jon asked if they should try calling Basira. “We should be back in range of a cell tower by now.”

“Uh…” Martin glanced at his phone. “Jon, it’s seven in the morning.”

“She’s probably up.”

“‘Awake’ does not mean ‘ready to deal with our nonsense.’”

“…Fair point. Maybe we should wait until we’ve left Edinburgh.”

* * *

Three hours, a few fitful naps and a change of trains later, they were on their way to London, and Martin was calling Basira.

“Where the hell have you been?” Her deep, blunt voice reached Jon’s ears easily, although Martin did not have the call on speaker. “You missed your last check-in.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” said Martin. “We’re—”

“On your way back, yeah, I figured.”

“Uh, how did you… oh, right. Mobile number. No signal in the village.”

“Yeah. So I’m asking again: where the hell have you been? And also, what the hell are you doing? You know you’re still being hunted.”

“Yeah.” Martin glanced up at Jon, who shook his head. Better not to tell Basira yet, that they knew Julia Montauk was dead, or how. “Look, Basira, we’ve—I’m sorry we haven’t checked in, but something came up at the cabin, and—”

“What’s happened.”

“Not over the phone. We’re on the train down from Edinburgh right now, should be back at the Institute this afternoon. There’s, uh… there’s a lot we need to talk to you about.”

“Yeah. You do. Which reminds me: are you _ever_ going to tell me what that evacuation was about? Because there’s only one thing I can think of and—”

“Yes, Ba—B… Basira, this is very much a ‘not over the phone’ conversation. I promise, we will tell you when we get back to London.”

“Okay. Fine. Oh, and Rosie took a call from your landlord last week. Your flat, uh… you’ve been evicted, Martin. Sorry.”

“Oh! Well, uh… damn. Wish I could say I was surprised. Did he throw out my stuff or…?”

“Said he’d keep it in storage for a few months. You’ll have to pay to get it out.”

“Right.” Martin pinched the bridge of his nose. “Thanks, Basira. We’ll see you when we get in.”

“Watch your backs.”

Martin stared at his now silent phone. “Guess we’re both homeless now,” he muttered.

“Looks that way,” said Jon, who had lost his own flat during his coma.

Shoving his phone into his pocket, Martin stood up, stooping awkwardly to avoid the low roof of the luggage rack. “I’m gonna walk up and down a bit.”

Jon nodded sympathetically and watched him go

* * *

It was noon. Jon was tired, his head was pounding, and he was working very hard not to actively Know things. He was out of practice with _not_ Knowing what others were thinking and feeling and doing, and his mind automatically reached for the information the same way his lungs reached for air—which, he had to remind himself periodically, was something that they still did. (It wasn’t that he doubted his need for oxygen, exactly, but after, having been everything-but-brain-dead and now being something decidedly not human, well… The cognitive dissonance could be debilitating, if he thought about it too much.)

But the last thing he needed right now was to antagonize the Beholding. He was exhausted, relatively unprotected, out in the world, and really didn’t want to have a nosebleed on the train.

“Still feeling antsy?” he asked, as Martin came back to their seats. “This is the sixth time you’ve had to walk up and down the train car.”

“I know. Sorry.” Martin slumped in his seat and studiously ignored the annoyed glares of the other passengers the train had accumulated. “I just… this feels like a lot of people. A lot of… notice.”

“Not much fun being the center of attention, is it?” Jon teased dryly, curling his fingers comfortingly around Martin’s hand.

“Yes, right, point taken, I just… I don’t want to be here. I mean, _here_ , on this train. There’s… too many people. Too many… heh. Eyes. They’ve all got so much more weight to them now. And it’s really tempting to just try go—go Away.”

“What’s—I’ve always wondered what that’s like.”

“It’s not the same as entering completely into the Lonely. It’s… quiet. More like moving just slightly to the left of everyone else. Every _thing_ is the same, but the people are just… gone. And it’s scary, but… it’s also kind of nice. Okay, really nice. And it’s not hard; I used to do it at the Institute all the time. Even before I knew I was doing it.”

“Yes. I remember. But you don’t want to do it now.”

“No, I don’t, I… I don’t want to leave you alone.”

“Martin,” said Jon fondly. “I’ll still know you’re here.”

“Yeah, but you won’t be able to _see_ me, and… yeah, doesn’t feel like a good time. Plus, I’m not too sure about trying to slip between dimensional layers while on a moving train.”

“Mph. Probably a good idea.” Jon rested his head on Martin’s shoulder. “D’you think you could manage to sit still for a bit? You make a very comfy pillow.”

Martin’s laugh was soft and a little strained, but his answer was fond. “Yeah. I’ll try. You get some sleep.”


	21. Homecoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back to the Institute, back to the Archive, back to... normal?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This month has kicked my butt! Here have another chapter!
> 
> Behold! Glitchingicarus's illustrations for [Chapter 13](https://glitchingicarus.tumblr.com/post/636980729647104000/i-can-definitely-see-eliasjonah-hes-he) and [the first of three (three!) for Chapter 14](https://glitchingicarus.tumblr.com/post/638159246463254528/oh-yes-the-web-did-send-me-to-you-jon-said)!
> 
> Chapter warnings for: memories of trauma/fear, deeply reluctant acquiescence to Beholding/Lonely powers, unexpected visions; mentions of: blood, mutilation, death (offscreen).
> 
> Thank you as always for reading and commenting. ♥

Ten-and-a-half hours after they left the small, safe village in the Highlands, they were back in London. A walk and a trip on the Tube and another walk, and there was the Magnus Institute.

It was the beginning of November now, and even though it was only mid-afternoon, the weather was as dark, cold and rainy as it had been when they’d left the cabin that morning. It already felt like a lifetime ago to Martin. And the ruined world felt like several hundred lifetimes ago. For all that it had been the driving force in his life for so long, he found he had trouble remembering what day-to-day life had ever been like in the Archives, let alone before the Archives. Before Jon.

He remembered the fear, though. That cold, lingering, hard ball in the throat, the ever-present certainty that he was being watched and judged, and that eventually, he’d be revealed as a fraud. The brief flashes of sick white-hot terror when he’d been sure he was about to die, and the dull constant background throb of wondering _when_ he was going to die.

Martin remembered it all, and marveled at how distant it all felt. How small and unreal, compared with everything he’d seen and experienced under the rule of the Beholding. How very painfully human it had all been.

“Y’know,” he said, as they mounted the rain-slick marble steps, out of the way of Chelsea’s irritable foot traffic, “I never thought we’d come back here.”

“Hmm? Oh, uh… yeah,” Jon agreed vaguely, startled out of his own thoughts. He craned his neck to peer up the columned Victorian façade, to the name carved over the entrance. “It feels… I don’t know, maybe that it was… inevitable, I suppose. Like it’s for us. Like this really is _all_ there is for me now.”

“Don’t say that,” Martin said quickly, though it felt more like a reflex. The closer they got to the front door, the more noticeable that back-of-the-neck feeling became. Of course—they were entering a temple of the Eye, of course he would feel more Seen here than he’d felt since… “It’s weird, but… I thought it’d look different, somehow.”

“You thought it would be the Panopticon here, too.”

“I mean, when you say it aloud it sounds stupid, but… I can’t help it. I can’t _not_ think of it. I don’t think that image will ever go away. That awful, all-seeing tower, and the imprisoned would-be king at the top of it…”

Jon took a deep breath, and squeezed Martin’s hand. “I know. I… me neither.”

They reached the top of the steps (which were not tall but which each man felt had taken an age to climb), and for a minute or two they just stood there, both staring at the heavy but unadorned wooden door and the heavy, unassuming brass doorknob. “I don’t want to do this,” murmured Jon, so softly that Martin almost didn’t hear him over the rain. “But I do want it. I want to run away with you and never think about this place again… but I’m salivating at the thought of being back in the Archive, like it’s… like it’s _home_. I just… I want to have a normal, boring life, but after everything I’ve seen and done and Known, that seems so much more unbelievable than—than worms and possessed books and hungry doors, and everything that lurks behind them.”

This time, Martin squeezed _his_ hand. “I’m scared, too. But we can’t stand out here forever.” He gripped the doorknob, set his teeth, and let them in.

For a little while, they just stood in the foyer, dripping on the mat and looking around furtively, Martin feeling as awkward and out-of-place as he had the day he’d come for his interview.

Jon, after noting the clean scoured walls and the places on the old wallpaper where framed photos and newspaper clippings had been taken down and moved about to cover up the more stubborn blood stains from Trevor and Julia’s spree, found his gaze being drawn inexorably upwards, to the large, formal oil portrait of the Institute’s founder that hung over the entrance to the library.

He’d never paid much attention to it before, except once or twice in his first weeks in Research, and all he’d done at that time was to sneer at the needlessly gaudy and overworked gilded frame, but now Jon stared into the cold, smug, sulfur-green eyes of Jonah Magnus, and cursed. How had he never noticed that Elias had the exact same eyes? Then again, it was only a painting, and of an old man, at that—Jonah would have been in his seventies, or even in his eighties, when he’d sat for it—no doubt if he had ever taken the time to stop and look and consider, he would most likely have concluded that the resemblance was either his imagination, a coincidence, or possibly even genetic. It would at least have given him a _very_ satisfactory explanation of how a pothead from Artifact Storage became the head of the Institute in barely five years.

Idly, he wondered what colour Elias Bouchard’s eyes had been, before Jonah destroyed them.

The door leading into Research opened and a woman stepped into the Foyer, carrying a stack of files and looking preoccupied and exhausted. She walked briskly to the desk beside the main entrance, barely looking at them except for a brief glance to register that there were people in her foyer who hadn’t been there when she’d left it.

“Good afternoon,” she said, with mechanical politeness, “welcome to the Magnus Institute, have you come to make a statem…” Her words trailed off as she finally looked fully at them.

Martin smiled hesitantly, for a second not even sure if she _could_ see them. After all, Oliver had said that what he and Jon saw wouldn’t be what others saw… “Hi, Rosie.”

“Oh my _god_ , where have you two _been_?! We’ve been worried sick about you!”

Jon blinked. “What, really?”

“Yes!”

“Both of us?”

“Yes, Jon!”

“Wh-that’s… I’m touched! I just thought—”

Rosie (and Martin) glared at him in impatient exasperation. “Jon, regardless of everyone thinking that you’re weird _even for this place_ , I promise nobody wants you dead.”

“I mean, that’s not strictly true…”

“Wait, people thought we were dead?”

Rosie gladly turned her attention back to Martin, whom she had always gotten on with much better. “We didn’t know _what_ to think! Basira told me you two were okay, and I mostly believed her, but I still didn’t know where you were, and as for everyone else else—I mean, with what happened back in September, half the rumour mill was certain you’d been murdered by those two maniacs.” A shadow passed over her face. “I am really glad you’re back, Martin. We had some deaths among the staff and there’s a lot of paperwork that needs an official signature…”

“Uh, yeah, about that…” Martin opened his mouth to protest, glanced over at Jon, and then gave up. “Not today, Rosie. I’ll—we’ll talk about the insurance stuff soon, I promise, but we’ve had a really long trip.”

“Of course,” she said soothingly, and Jon shot Martin an apologetic smile. As far as Rosie was concerned, Martin was already in charge. “Can I get you some tea?”

“Uh… no, thanks. Could, um, could you call Basira for us? Is she in? She should be expecting us.”

Rosie’s expression was apologetic. “She’s not here, Martin. She went out around twelve to follow up on a statement, and she hasn’t come back yet.”

“Ah. Um… and she didn’t mention that we were coming in today?”

“Afraid not. But she probably didn’t expect to be gone this long.”

Martin glanced sidelong at the Archivist, but Jon appeared to be preoccupied. His forehead was furrowed in concentration, and although his eyes didn’t precisely glow, it was plain enough that he was trying, very, _very_ carefully, to Know. “What statement?” Jon asked, a bit distantly.

“Um…” Rosie flipped through her logbook. “Case 0041812. Statement of Christopher Sheridan, regarding an unusual antique map.”

Jon’s face scrunched into a deeper frown for a second or two… then he shook his head. “It’s not ringing any bells.”

“Why’s she off following up on statements, anyway?” Martin asked, trying and failing to hold back a skull-splitting yawn.

“Because it’s her job, I’d imagine…” said Rosie dryly. “And the last instructions we had from you were that business was to continue as normally as possible, so we’ve all been doing our best.”

“That was just for the administrative side! I’m not in charge of Basira—or of the Institute as a whole, but definitely not Basira.”

“Well, until the Board of Trustees can meet and decide otherwise, I’m afraid you are, at least for the time-being. And she’s the only Archive employee left to do the work, what with Melanie’s… accident, and Daisy being missing, and you two eloping—”

Martin almost choked. “Excuse me?!”

“Oh yes, that was the other half of the rumour mill. There was quite a little betting pool going on.”

“Er,” said Jon.

“Neither to both, I’m afraid,” said Martin, though he couldn’t prevent the hottest blush he’d felt in months from spreading over his cheeks.

Rosie raised a knowing eyebrow. “That so? Are you _sure_ you won’t be needing to file domestic partner paperwork?”

Martin was at a loss for words. He felt altogether too seen, and he didn’t like it. Jon understood and stepped in to save him. “Has Basira been gossiping about us, Rosie? You seem to be particularly well-informed.”

“Or maybe you two are just disgustingly obvious.” She cast a brief but comprehensive eye over the pair of them. “The time away’s been good for you, then.”

Jon blinked. “Uh,” said Martin. “Ye… how d’you mean?”

“You two, you look good. I mean, apart from having spent all day traveling and being desperately in need of a shower. But you guys look great! You look… very well-rested.”

“Uh,” said Martin again, but Jon’s hand on his arm kept him from saying anything else.

“Yes, Rosie,” Jon said. “We did get a lot of rest. Now, if you’ll excuse us, I need to get back to my Archive.”

“What’s going on, Jon?” Martin muttered, once they were a safe distance away from the foyer and Rosie’s desk. “We look like shit.”

“I’m not sure…”

“D’you think this is what Oliver meant?”

“Maybe. It might also be the Eye protecting us. Shielding us while I’m still weak. Or we might be shrouding ourselves in some kind of illusion so that others _can’t_ see how rundown we are.”

“But you don’t know for certain.”

“I haven’t a bloody clue.”

* * *

Walking into the Archive again after so many weeks, after having left under such godawful circumstances, felt less like a homecoming and more like… well, exactly what it was: like coming back to a deeply detested job after a long holiday.

Except for them, it quite literally _was_ a homecoming, in that this had to be their home for the foreseeable future.

They shed their luggage and their jackets in the Archive’s secure storage room with a sickly sense of déjà vu. “Just like old times.”

“Hopefully now with fewer surprises,” Jon muttered, rubbing his eyes.

“Hey.” He looked up to Martin’s hands on his shoulders and his worried face hovering over Jon’s own. “You okay?”

“Just tired. Really,” he insisted in reply to Martin’s unspoken skepticism. “I promise!”

“…Yeah. Me too.” Martin sighed. “Look, I feel gross. Will you be okay alone here for a bit? I want to go grab a shower.”

Jon blinked. “Uh… where, exactly?”

“Artifact Storage has a decontamination shower.” Martin raised his eyebrows pointedly at his boyfriend. “Exactly how did you think I managed to keep myself from reeking while I was living down here?”

“I, uh…”

“Never even crossed your mind, did it.”

“Afraid not,” said Jon, with an embarrassed, lopsided smile. “If I did think about it, I probably just assumed you were sponging off in the men’s room.”

“I mean, I _was_ , at first. Then Sasha told me about the decon shower and… look, Jon, d’you want to go first?”

But Jon shook his head. “No, you go. I go the last shower at the cabin, so it’s only fair. Besides, I’d… rather wait til after everyone’s gone home for the night.”

Martin grinned a little. “Normally, so would I, but… no one’ll notice me.”

He fetched a change of clothes and some toiletries from his rucksack and went out, fading away without fanfare as he neared the door.

Jon managed to suppress most of a shudder at the sight. It was something he simply had to get used to. At least he got to see Martin now, as opposed to when the Lonely was merely a means to an end, something that Martin was willing to be consumed by, and so determined to be Alone for everyone’s sake except his own.

He closed his eyes for a moment, and felt a tug from somewhere among the stacks. There were statements calling to him, sharp bright bursts of whispers among the low background noise of frightened murmurs. Strange… he’d never been able to hear them before.

“I’m not ready,” he said aloud. “Not yet. Be quiet.”

Obediently, but with palpable ill-grace, the whispers and murmurs subsided. They would leave him to his own devices, for now.

Though not, Jon knew, for much longer.

He gritted his teeth and walked into the stacks, in the opposite direction of the ones that had called to him. He was browsing through the files for the previous decade, looking for the Christopher Sheridan statement, when he heard the door open and shut. There was a faint whiff of salty air as Martin’s familiar tread entered the Archive. Then there a sudden, agonized scream split the dusty air.

“Martin!” Jon bolted out of the stacks, his bad leg screaming at the sudden movement. He found Martin, his hair still dripping from his shower, frozen before the door of the Archivist’s office, staring inside with eyes gone blank and a face so pale it might have been made of paper.

Jon grabbed him by the arms and shook him. “Martin!”

A shudder passed through the big man, and then Martin hugged Jon so tightly, he almost lifted Jon from the floor. “You’re okay,” he murmured, beginning to tremble violently.

It was a long time before Martin was calm enough to say anything else, and even then, his big body shook in Jon’s arms. “I walked into your office and I saw… a man. Slumped over the desk. His… his eyes were… gone. Gouged out or—or _torn_ out. And there was blood everywhere. I-I… I…” He drew in a deep breath and buried his face in Jon’s hair. “I thought it was you.”

“And that’s when you screamed.”

“Yeah. It all happened so _fast_ … he was only there for a split-second and then you came running, and it was all gone.”

“Did you recognize him?”

Martin shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so, but he was… I mean, he was there and then he wasn’t, and it’s kind of hard to recognize someone who’s been that mutilated, but… near as I can figure, I’d never seen him before. But it wasn’t just him, Jon, it was the whole office. The whole room was different, somehow. Literally, it was a different room. But it was like… seeing something in a flash of lightning. It’s there, you see it, but then it’s dark again. I can’t even tell you what this other room looked like.”

“Only that it didn’t look like my office.”

“Yeah. I-I’m sorry, I can’t…” He drew in a deep breath. “I don’t know what I saw, and I don’t want to know. As long as it wasn’t you… I don’t care.”

“Okay,” Jon soothed. He coaxed Martin down into a chair, and then perched on the edge of the desk beside him. “Then I won’t ask any more questions.”

Martin tipped his head to one side. “What, really? Will… will the Eye just let you leave this alone?”

“For the moment, at least, it feels like it will. I’m trying not to ask to Know things right now… Pushing the issue still feels like a bad idea. I thought for sure I was going to burst a blood vessel earlier, trying to Know what Basira was up to.”

“I was worried, too. So… did you find out anything?”

Jon sighed and shook his head. “Nothing about where she is or what she’s doing. Just a bit of a nudge about the statement itself, but… nothing particularly urgent.” He snorted softly. “No doubt that will change when I least expect it. Just being back is making me feel both more grounded and more anxious.”

“Hungry.”

“…I’m afraid so, yes.”

“Jon. What you said earlier. About… me needing to feed the Eye and the Lonely.”

“Yes.”

“D’you think…” He searched for words, gave up with a short, frustrated sigh, and started again. “Accepting our new natures and coming back to the Institute—does that mean we’re no better than the avatars we’ve been fighting? And… killing?”

“I don’t know, Martin. I’ve been trying to figure that out for a long time, and… I don’t know. We’re not heroes, though. At least, I’m not.”

“How d’you figure?”

“Because all true hero stories are tragedies. The world gets saved, and the heroes… don’t. Well, we saved the world, and here I am, still very much alive. Again. Fated to always to be the monster in someone else’s story. The only hero I’ve got any right to look for is the one who’s eventually going to slay me.”

“Sometimes the hero saves the monster, you know,” Martin said softly.

Jon could feel the ghosts of the eyes under his skin ache and throb with growing hunger. “I don’t think true love’s kiss is going to transform me into anything more or less than what I already am.”

Martin’s hand in his hair was gentle and warm, and so were his lips. They moved softly from the crown of his head, down his temple, down the line of his jaw, until they found Jon’s mouth and stayed there for a long, long time.

“You don’t need to be anyone else but who you are,” Martin assured him, his breath warm and his gaze full of Jon. “Besides… I’m not a hero, either. Pretty well walked away from playing that part a long time ago. But I still really like fairy tales, and even after everything we’ve been, through… I still believe in happy endings. And I’ve never read a fairy tale that says the monsters can’t help save themselves.” He rested his forehead against Jon’s for a moment. “And speaking of feeding, I’m _starving_. D’you, uh, want to go out and grab something, or…?”

“Let’s just order in, please.”

Martin’s relief was palpable.

They had used all of the cash they’d liberated from Peter and Elias’s pockets on their trip home, but now that they were back, Martin had no qualms about shamelessly using the Institute’s charge accounts for takeaway.

When the food came, they ate eagerly, though neither of them was especially satisfied by the chicken kebab and pilaf. But it blunted their various hungers, for the time-being.

After their meal, Jon went off to shower—quickly; he did not want to be alone in Artefact Storage for one second longer than he needed to be. When he returned, he found Martin in the Archive’s secure room, frowning at the makeshift sleeping arrangements. “Something wrong?”

“Hmm? Oh, no, just wishing we’d thought to cram a couch in here at some point. One of us is going to have to sleep on the floor.”

“What? Surely not.” Jon gestured to the camp bed. “I’ll just, y’know. Sleep on top of you.”

“Adorable as you are when you do that, if we try to sleep stacked up on this thing, we’re going to collapse it. Trust me,” Martin added, with an uncomfortable grimace. “Take it from the big guy who’s definitely destroyed flimsy camp beds more than once in his life.”

“…Right. Well, it’s no problem for me to sleep on the floor.”

“What? Oh no. I’ll take the floor; I’ve at least got plenty of padding.”

“Martin—”

They went back and forth on the question for god only knew how long. Finally, Martin grabbed a blanket and simply plopped down on the floor, stretching out with his rucksack for a pillow.

“Martin, you’re being ridiculous—”

“Jon? Just take the goddamned bed.”

Grumbling reflexively, Jon did as he was told. He reached up and turned off the lights, then curled up tightly and reached down to take Martin’s hand. “I’m here.”

“I know,” Martin said softly. “Get some sleep.”

“You too,” Jon urged, thinking of the bizarre and horrific vision that had assaulted the one he loved. “I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”

“I know,” said Martin again, even softer.

At some point during the night, Jon ended up sprawled on top of Martin anyway.


	22. Morning Meetings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Both Martin and Jon have unscheduled early appointments.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Glitchingicarus did [three (3!) absolutely amazing illustrations for Chapter 14](https://glitchingicarus.tumblr.com/post/641333836196773888/there-is-a-king-in-the-tower-and-it-isnt-jonah), I'm over the moon about them and you should really go and check them out and let her know how fucking COOL they are.
> 
> Ugh, I'm so sorry for the delay in updates. I'd wanted this chapter to be much much **much** longer, to try and move the plot along faster, but then ADHD brain happened and well, this is what I managed. 
> 
> Content warnings for: intrusive eldritch thoughts, memories of trauma/fear, threats of violence/abandonment. 
> 
> Thank you as always for reading and commenting. ♥

It wasn’t a knock at the door that woke Martin, thankfully. A full-on knock probably would have had Jon shooting out of bed and into the nearest available corner for a nice cozy panic attack.

No, it was a gentle but firm set of taps, and then the door creaked open a fraction of an inch. “Oh! Martin, you’re awake. Good, I…” Rosie paused, blinking a little at the Magnus Institute’s archivist lying prostrate over its new acting director, who was currently on his back on the storeroom’s deeply suspect industrial carpet. “Well, don’t you two look comfy.”

Still only half-awake and confused, for a moment, Martin’s vision clouded over, and he felt a wave of hatred more overpowering than anything he had ever conceived of. How _dare_ she see him like this! And there was a fraction of a second, too brief for him to do anything but long enough for him to remember later, and burn with shame, when he wanted nothing more than to send her Away.

He didn’t. It passed. And it helped immensely that Rosie had brought tea.

“I’m really sorry, but there’s a board rep here and he’s waiting to speak with you. I brought you a cup of tea as an apology, though, for the early wake-up call, so, um. I’ll just leave that on Jon’s desk for you while you get dressed.”

“A wh... a _what_?”

“The board of donors have sent a representative to speak with the acting director, and I’m afraid that’s you. Even if there was someone else who would potentially speak with him, he asked for you by name.”

“…Great. Did _he_ give a name?”

“Matthew Lukas.”

“Great,” Martin muttered, more darkly this time.

“He’s waiting for you in Elias’s... well, I guess it’s your office, now.”

“N—right. Right, thanks, Rosie. I’ll, uh... I’ll be up in a few minutes.” He managed only a ghost of his old friendly smile, but it seemed to reassure her, and she closed the storeroom door with a nod and a repeated promise to leave his tea on Jon’s desk. It was all right. She was fine.

But he trembled, as he rose and gently settled the still-sleeping Jon onto the camp bed and got dressed as quietly as he could, at how close he had come. How much... how much he had _wanted_ to. And the fact that she was his friend, someone he liked and trusted, hadn’t mattered in the slightest. In the space between one second and the next, he could have ended her.

And Martin had no idea if he could have gotten her back.

For the first and only time, he regretted that Peter was dead and that his ghost was out of reach. He had a feeling that Peter would have enjoyed showing him the ropes. Showing him how to properly serve the Lonely.

Then again, maybe Peter would have just enjoyed watching him fall on his face repeatedly, probably while intoning smugly, “There’s more than one way to be Lonely,’ or something. Prick.

He slipped out of the storeroom and gulped down his tea, barely noticing that it was scalding hot, and went to go vent his frustration on someone who deserved it.

* * *

The door to Elias’s office (Martin refused as yet to think of it as _his_ office) stood open, and he could see someone with white-blond hair sitting in front of the empty desk, waiting.

Groggy and irritated and deeply uninterested in being polite, Martin shrouded himself almost without thinking, and went to stand beside this interloper, who was intently going over some writing in a pocket notebook, and did not seem to notice the gentle creep of fog beside his chair.

Thus ignored, Martin sized up the young man who had been sent to officially harass him. Matthew, Rosie had said his name was. Matthew Lukas, because of course it had to be. The family was one of the Institute’s most significant donors, both in monetary terms and in sheer force of reputation. They would never have sent anyone who wasn’t one of their own.

He was pale, neat, maybe twenty-four or twenty-five years old, about Martin’s height and about two-thirds his weight; he looked well-dressed and well-rested, and had the air of someone who’d never had to worry about money a day in his life. Peter had been like that, too.

Martin hated people like that.

Well, he might be a Lukas, but at least he wasn’t Peter, and if there was one thing Martin had long since learned how to handle, it was the Lonely.

And he also wasn’t too thrilled by officious little rich errand boys who probably sneered at northern accents.

“Matthew Lukas? I’m Martin Blackwood. I believe you were looking for me.”

Matthew looked up, startled, and found himself sitting in a standard-issue office chair, on a gray beach, under a gray sky, beside a gray sea.

* * *

When Jon woke up, he was back in the camp bed, blankets carefully tucked in around him, and Martin was nowhere to be seen. He untangled himself and sat up slowly, aching from the exhaustion of a long trip and the uncomfortable canvas bed, and with a gnawing hunger that went far deeper than his stomach and wasn’t likely to be assuaged by the remains of last night’s Chinese takeaway or by a croissant from the canteen.

Thankfully (for certain valuations of ‘thankful’), there was at least no shortage of statements for him to choose from, for his breakfast.

He pushed a handful of tangled hair out of his eyes and looked at the door of the storage room. Then he blinked, reached for his glasses, and looked again.

It was the wrong door.

Jon grimaced. _Well,_ he thought philosophically, _if I’d wanted peace that badly, I would have stayed in Scotland._ He slithered off the low camp bed and grabbed a clean set of outer clothes from his rucksack, and shrugged them on over the boxers and vest he’d slept in. He wanted to make sure he had as much protection as possible, before he knocked on that yellow door, even if it was only symbolic.

And he didn’t trust Helen not to peep at him through the keyhole.

The wood of the door, which was not wood, pulsed warmly against his knuckles as he rapped. It was not a pleasing sensation, but then, it never had been. “Morning, Helen,” said Jon to the figure that appeared beyond the door.

“And a _very_ good morning to you, Archivist,” said the distorted form of Helen Richardson, smiling with all the teeth she possessed and quite a few that she did not. She moved into the room like an ill-intention rumor and sat on the vacated camp bed, the very picture of a prim and proper abstract sculpture from hell. “I do hope you had a nice honeymoon. So rude of you not to invite me to the wedding. And here I thought we were friends.”

“We’re—wait, what makes you think I got married?”

Helen rolled her eyes. “It’s a _joke_ , Jon. Blimey. But you have to admit, it was very nice of me to leave you and Martin alone while you were playing house. I could’ve just popped in for a visit. Just opened a door onto your nice little back garden and strolled in for tea.”

“I, uh...” For a second or three, all Jon could do was stare at her blankly, and never mind the mention of the back garden. She had been there, at the Panopticon, at the end... hadn’t she? She _had_ been, he was sure of it, even if his memories of those final moments were somewhat... outerworldly. And Martin had told him repeatedly what had happened when he had been overtaken by the Beholding. Helen had been there, along with Oliver Banks and Annabelle Cane. “Sorry, but it’s been a very... a very strange couple of months. I’m... what’s the last thing—do you remember our last encounter?”

She tipped her head to one side, and it seemed to Jon that all the angles of her face had to shift and realign before she looked like her usual approximation of herself again. “Do you?”

“...Yes.” For one crystalline moment, Jon was back in the tunnels, with a blade pressing dangerously against his already too-scarred throat. “You wouldn't help me. And you laughed. You said that chaos was coming, and you wanted to see it. And then it never came.”

Helen tipped her head to the other side, with far too much neck for his liking. “Are you sure that's the _last_ thing you remember?”

“It’s the last time I remember seeing you in the tunnels,” said Jon, honestly enough.

“Interesting...”

“What about you?”

“I’m not sure.” She sounded... well, like he distantly remembered her, in the months between waking up in the hospital and ending the world. Calm, mildly confused but accepting of her situation, and by turns amused and frustrated at his refusal to acquiesce to his new nature. Like a friend.

He knew better, now.

“It’s all been a bit of a jumble, since you left. Sometimes I think I’ve spent years basking in glorious mayhem and disorientation, and then everything suddenly... makes sense again. And it’s all so disappointing. Time is... ugh. Time is difficult, Archivist.”

“Yes, I know. You’ve said that to me before. Well. Michael did.”

Helen’s features twisted into something very disapproving, almost as though she had smelled something rotten. What had her apocalypse counterpart said? _‘He was rubbish, compared to me!’_

He’d been mulling over that ever since she’d said it, too. About the differences between these two faces of the Distortion. Jon recalled how this embodied aspect of the Spiral had first come to his notice: Sasha’s statement of the distorted form of a man, seen first through warped glass, then in a coffee shop, and then outside of an old cemetery. The door hadn’t been part of Michael's story, not at first.

Jon thought he understood a little more now, about doors. About smiles. About trust. One had to understand about what lay behind doors and smiles to be able to bend and twist the rules of a game to suit one’s own, hopefully more benevolent purposes. A person—a being—had to know how trust worked before he could use it to his own ends.

 _Are they my own ends?_ he wondered, deep lines creasing his forehead as he frowned. _How can I even be sure of that much? Am I the force behind my own purposes now, or is it still the Eye? Or some combination of the two? Or… here, in this time and place… just how powerful **am** I?_

He rubbed his dry hands over his forearms, where the eyes ached beneath his skin.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

“Hmm?” Jon came back to himself and found Helen’s mismatched eyes watching his every movement, like a very eager predator trailing a potential meal that was eternally out of reach. “Oh, just thinking... about what it means to serve a patron whose aims and goals you fundamentally disagree with...”

“How very boring.”

“Yes... I suppose it would be, to you. Doubt isn’t something you much trouble yourself with. Much more fun to trouble other people with it. To smile and smile and smile... and watch while we all bleed.”

“There's something different about you,” she said slowly, her voice going sharp.

“How so? Do I look different?” He kept the question as casual as he could, not wanting to pique her interest any further, but he wondered if perhaps the Distortion could see… whatever Oliver had warned Martin that others would see.

“You might, to human eyes. I see the same Jonathan Sims I’ve always seen, the one nobody else ever sees… but something about you has changed. And I don't think I like it.”

“Oh?”

“No.”

He let out a soft little huff, not quite a laugh. “What’s wrong? Scared?”

“No.”

“Helen...” He felt his lips curling into a wicked smile as a little of the old ruined power vibrated through his bones. “Was that... a lie?”

“No,” she said, for the third time, and too quickly. She rose and moved back to the safety of her threshold, practically slicing the air in her haste to return to her door.

“Helen.” Jon’s voice struck a peculiar ringing note, like the snapping of a chain, and the static rose in the little room until it was almost deafening. She was still trying to fit into herself, but she was nearly there, and with the benefit of hindsight (or could it be more properly called foresight?), he knew he wouldn’t have another chance. “Don’t lie to me again. You won’t survive it.”

* * *

“Do… do we really need to have this conversation here?” Matthew ventured, as he rose reluctantly from his chair.

“Why not? It’s private.”

“Yes, but… it’s yours.”

Martin opted not to correct him and say that it was actually Peter’s. To the victor… “Yes, and? Is this some kind of social faux pas among the servants of the Forsaken?” Martin smiled, and he knew it wasn’t a friendly expression. “Or are you worried you won’t be able to get out, if I decide to leave you here?”

“Um, well… both, really.”

“That so? In that case, maybe I should just leave you here. Because you woke me up after I spent almost twenty-four hours on my feet, and I am _very_ hungry. And we have a strict no-eating-the staff policy here at the Magnus Institute.”

“Ah, y-you do?”

“Well, we do now. Now that I’m in charge.”

Martin hid a grin while Matthew—a distant, professional, polite and deeply confused Matthew—processed that. To his surprise, he was actually enjoying himself. Which he fully acknowledged was not a _good_ thing, but after the year he’d had, Martin was willing to take the fun moments where he found them. He was also genuinely horrified at what he had agreed to become and what he knew he was going to need to do soon... but in the meantime... “So. What can I do for you, Mr. Lukas?”

His uncomfortable visitor looked down at the small notebook in his hand. “I... have been asked by the board of donors to meet with the director of the Magnus Institute—”

“Sorry, just a mo’. I’m assuming by ‘board of donors’, you mean the portion of the board that’s made up of members of your extended family?”

“Er, yes.”

“And by ‘the director,’ you actually meant Elias Bouchard.”

“To be completely frank, I was somewhat unclear on who I would be meeting with. I was told it might be Mr. Bouchard, but that it... might not be. If you follow me.”

“Well, Elias Bouchard is dead, I can tell you that much. But if you’re hoping for official confirmation of that, I’m going to have to disappoint you. You’ll have to take my word for it.”

“It’s not strictly Mr. Bouchard’s death that I’m concerned with right now… if you take my meaning.”

“I do,” said Martin, leveling his very un-Jonah Magnus-like eyes at his visitor.

“He was in possession of… well, that is to say—”

“I know. He’s dead, too.”

Somehow, Matthew Lukas paled even further, and took a step back. The lifeless sand crunched under his feet, too loudly. “That... shouldn’t be possible.”

“Watched it happen myself.”

“Then you did not…?"

“The Archivist is alive, Mr. Lukas. Jonah Magnus is not. You fill in the blanks.”

“I... will do that... Mr. Blackwood.” Matthew didn’t actually tug nervously at his collar but Martin got the distinct impression that he wanted to.

“Good. Are we done?”

“There were several—actually, there was one other thing… The family is under the impression that Captain Peter Lukas is dead. Is this true?”

Martin waited, but no inconvenient ghost popped up to take the words out of his mouth. “Yes. It’s true.”

Matthew nodded. He had regained his composure and now seemed neither surprised nor frightened, and Martin hated him all the more for it. “We would like to know the details.”

“There are no details,” said Martin bluntly. “He used me to his own ends and then he tried to trap the Archivist here.”

“And then…”

“Like I said.” Martin turned away and vanished, leaving Matthew sitting in the empty director’s office once more. “Fill in the blanks.”


	23. Unsatisfying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basira's returned to the Institute, and her arrival brings to light the appearance of another mystery... and another problem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Illustrations for [chapter 15](https://glitchingicarus.tumblr.com/post/642415184895442944/am-i-in-your-lap-by-the-way-you-are-and-im) and [chapter 16](https://glitchingicarus.tumblr.com/post/644860087614193664/does-it-hurt-martin-asked-being-dead-it)! Glitchingicarus has outdone themself again, as usual.
> 
> Content warnings for: scopophobia, trypophobia, discussion of forced outing. (I think that's it, but if there's anything else, please let me know.)
> 
> Thank you as always for reading and commenting. ♥

There were still wisps of fog clinging to Martin when he returned from meeting with the official representative of the Lukas family, curling around neck and wrists and ankles like stubborn fronds of seaweed. The image pleased the poet in him, but over all he was... less than thrilled with how he had handled the encounter. The exhilaration of putting the fear of their god into Matthew Lukas lingered, but it was fading fast, overpowered by a looming feeling of dismay. _I don’t **like** being a jerk to people,_ he thought grimly, _but wow, being a jerk to Matthew felt really good._

He entered the Archive and found Jon in his old place, at his desk in his small office. He was dressed, more or less, and leafing through a stack of statements, every so often pushing his hair out of his eyes with his unburned hand. “Good morning,” he said, without looking up. 

Martin hesitated on the threshold of the Archivist’s office. “Sorry about sneaking out, earlier,” he said, feeling a hint of the old awkwardness creeping up the back of his neck. It had been a long time since he’d blushed in Jon’s presence, and the unexpected heat was both painful and a welcome relief from the chill of the Lonely. “I had, uh... business.”

“I know.” 

“Oh! Did—did you _See_ it?”

Jon looked up with a wry, sleepy smile. “No, Rosie came down with tea to tell me where you were, and to apologize for dragging you off so early.”

“Ah.” Martin nodded, and then stood there, uncertain of what he should do next. “Well, I, um... I should probably go have a wash.”

“Are you okay?”

“N... no. Not really.”

Jon looked at his boyfriend keenly for a moment, and then deliberately set the stack of papers aside and gestured to the second chair. The invitation broke the odd little spell keeping Martin from entering, and he sat down heavily. “When I was talking with Matthew Lukas... I scared him. I mean, deliberately. I pulled him into the Lonely and onto the beach, I taunted him with what happened to Jonah and to Elias, I threatened him... I went out of my way to make him afraid of me. Of what I could do to him.”

“Hm. And... did you enjoy it?”

“Yes.” Martin swallowed. “I don’t like this, Jon. I don’t... Do _you_ like it? When you... uh...”

“When I force a statement out of someone, you mean.”

“I guess, sure.”

“Yes,” said Jon quietly, “I do get some enjoyment out of it. It’s... physically satisfying, like a good meal. But mentally, emotionally? I hate it. I hated it before the end of the world, I hated it after, and I hate it now. But that feeling of satisfaction, I’ve... I’m learning to lean into it, I suppose.”

“So what, you just accept it?”

“I made my choice. For once. And... this is what I am now.”

“And what _I_ am now... How do the others deal with it? The other avatars?”

“The ones who are aware of what they’ve become, who went into it with their eyes open? They don't have this problem. The rest? They find ways to cope. You either learn to like it, if you don’t already, or you try to rationalize it. Try to make yourself believe that you’re only hurting the people who deserve it.”

“That’s—Jon, that’s inhuman. And I’m using that word on purpose! I’m not about to make myself arbitrary judge, jury and executioner of the entire world, just so my conscience doesn’t bother me.”

“If I’d stayed in the Panopticon, if I had taken the place that was prepared for me, as the pupil of the Eye, that’s what I would’ve had to do. Well. It’s what I would have _tried_ to do. I don’t really know how successful I’d have been... or how long I would’ve been able to keep my resolve.” Jon swallowed and reached for his tea. “Rosie’s kind, but this is nowhere near as good as yours.”

“Yeah,” Martin chuckled, “well, at least that’s one thing that won’t change. Even if I _do_ have to become director.”

“Oh, that’s going to be interesting. The head of the Institute, making tea for one of his underlings?”

“You're not an underling, you’re my boyfriend. Big difference.” Martin’s gaze traveled to the papers under Jon’s drumming fingers. “Is that breakfast?”

“Hmm? Oh no, I haven’t eaten—er, read any of them yet.”

“Why not? You’re shaking. You should probably have a statement. It’s been days.”

Jon grimaced. “I know, I know, but none of them seem...”

“Satisfying?”

“They’re not calling to me.”

“What, none of them?”

“Nope. I’ve been looking through these since I got up – they’re all the statements that Rosie’s taken while we’ve been gone. Business as usual, in some ways… but nothing’s jumping out at me.”

“All duds?”

“No, not all. At a brief glance, I’d say two of the twelve are real encounters with one of the Fears that I’ll have to record eventually. But neither of them feel especially... urgent.”

“Not to your tastes.”

“Not what the Eye wants me to be ingesting, at the moment. Unfortunately, I’m not sure what it wants me to be interesting myself in. I’ve been through the stacks, trying to find something… I can hear the statements now, did you know that? They whisper to me. So many voices, so much... fear, and terror… It would all be nourishing, but none of it would be _satisfying._ ”

“…Huh.”

“What?”

“Nothing. I was going to say that they’re statements, not steaks, but… I guess the thought of a steak dinner probably isn’t as enticing as it used to be.”

Jon huffed softly. “Not really, no. You?”

“I’m not sure.” Martin scrubbed a hand through his hair; his fingers snagged on a tangle and he remembered that he hadn’t had a chance to properly clean up that morning. “I’m... still not entirely sure what serving the Lonely means, for me. Am I going to have to do what Peter did? Just… chucking people Away left and right?”

“Peter killed people because it was fun. You don’t need to become what he was.”

“You don’t know that. You _can’t_ Know that. Not for certain.”

“No,” said Jon, very gently. “It’s not something I know. It’s something I feel.”

“Dream-logic. Choices. Right.”

“Always.”

“…Gonna have to figure it out soon, though. I’m hungry. And I told Matthew that the Institute now has a ‘no eating the staff’ policy, so I’ll need to enforce that. Have to set a proper example.”

“That’s probably wise,” Jon agreed, grinning slightly. 

The phone on Jon’s desk rang, and both of them jumped. “Work!” said Martin with a grimace. “Right, it’s business hours now, isn’t it…”

“Afraid so.” Jon cleared his throat and answered. “Archives. Oh, Rosie. Thanks again for the tea, I—hmm? Oh! Oh yes, he’s here, do you want to… N-no, we’re…” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “No, it’s fine, Rosie, you can send her down. I—yes, we’re ‘decent’, thank you very much!” He hung up abruptly, his cheekbones darkening with a blush. “Basira’s back. She’s on her way down now.”

“Oh joy. At least we’re both wearing clean clothes.”

“Only mostly, in my case. I had an early visit from Helen, after you left.”

Martin frowned. “How’d that go?”

“Um… not great? But not…” The sound of footsteps coming down the uncarpeted steps reached their ears easily; Basira was taking no pains to hide her approach. “I’ll tell you later.”

* * *

They had agreed beforehand on a somewhat edited version of their time away. The Watcher’s Crown and the hellscapes and the Panopticon were omitted entirely, for the moment, at least. But they did at least tell her about Elias’s sudden appearance in Scotland, and the fact that his remains were now buried behind Daisy’s cabin, along with Peter Lukas’s bones.

“I thought he died in that Lonely… dimension? On the beach? And you actually went back in to bring his body out?”

“That’s not specifically why I went in, but—I mean, I was there, so…”

“So what, you decided to pick up some spooky beach litter?”

“Basically, yeah.”

“And… that’s why you came back. Because Elias… Jonah… fuck, Elias and/or Jonah Magnus is dead now.” 

“Partly, yes.” Martin glanced at Jon briefly before he continued. “And also because of Nicholas MacCallion.”

"Have you spoken with him yet?"

"No, but Jon thinks…" 

"That you need to speak with him," Jon interrupted. 

Martin glared at him. 

"Still the same cryptic prick as ever," Basira muttered. 

"We _also_ came back," Martin said, "because the Institute has no director, and apparently everyone thinks that's my job now, _including_ the fucking Lukas Family, who have already stopped by once this morning to pester me."

"Oh? How'd that go?"

"Well, the unlucky kid they tapped to come see me got to leave in one piece, but not after learning what happened to both Peter and Elias."

“So he’s really dead.”

Jon nodded. “Very, _very_ dead.”

“Is that going to be a problem?” Basira nodded at the tape recorder on Jon’s desk. “I mean, that thing is always running, where you’re concerned. Is there evidence we need to handle?”

“No.” Tipping his head to one side, Jon reached out very carefully, attempting to Know—or rather, to confirm what he already suspected. And to his relief, for once, the Eye was magnanimous. “It wasn’t recording during the… incident. The Beholding didn’t need to know how Elias, how Jonah was killed.”

“Why not?”

“I’m honestly not sure.”

“Guess.”

“Maybe it didn’t care about him anymore. Maybe… it had already made its choice.” 

"That's... that's ominous as fuck, Jon," said Basira, rather sourly. 

"Yeah. I know." He tried to shrug it off, but he couldn't really deny that she was right. “Thank you, by the way. For sending the statements.”

“Oh. Sure. I hope they were, uh… filling.”

“They were… very satisfying, yes,” said Jon, somewhat awkwardly, and ignoring Martin snorting at his choice of words. “Was there any particular reason why you chose the ones you did?”

Basira narrowed her eyes at him, trying to decide what he was angling for. “I didn’t chose them, really, I just grabbed a handful and stuffed them in an envelope.”

“And the tapes?”

“Tapes? Oh! Oh yeah, I forgot about those. Dunno, I guess I just thought, if I was sending paper statements, some recorded ones couldn’t hurt, too.” She continued to study him. “Why? Were they all repeats or something?”

“No, they were—they were fine, Basira.” Jon tried to smile, and judging from her lack of reaction, he mostly succeeded. “Thanks.”

Maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised; even he wasn’t always aware of what the Beholding was influencing him to do. And if she had known, he was sure she would have brought it up. Before. 

“What’s with the questions? Can’t you just Know this stuff?”

“I… it’s…” Jon sighed and raked a hand through his hair. “It’s complicated, Basira. The Eye, it’s… we’re not on speaking terms right now, I guess. It's not really giving me very much to work with, unless I push the issue, and that—”

“That,” said Martin, “leads to bad times.”

“So… what, you had a marital spat with a Dread Power?”

“Not exactly. It’s more akin to a remora getting pissed with the shark it’s latched onto.”

“…That would make you the shark. That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Look, I didn’t say it was a _good_ analogy. I’m an Archivist, not a poet.”

Basira looked at him strangely; Martin only groaned. “ _Star Trek_ , Jon? Really?”

“We’ve had this discussion before, Martin. I am allowed to know about pop culture.”

“Yeah, I know, it’s just super weird whenever you pull out a reference from like, comic books or something.”

“What, seriously?” Basira’s grin looked like it was on her face against her will. “Marvel or DC?”

“I swing both ways,” said Jon dryly. 

A very apologetic figure appeared in the doorway of the Archive. “Sorry to interrupt, but Martin, I have some paperwork I _really_ need you to look at and—”

“Rosie, we talked about this, nothing’s official yet.”

“You don’t have to be the official director of the Magnus Institute to approve insurance payouts and sign condolence letters, both of which are very overdue to the few family members we’ve been able to locate.”

Martin grimaced, knowing full well why there were so few employee next-of-kin on record. “Remind me why we left Scotland?”

“Because you two didn't have the good sense to run off and get married like most of us thought you did,” replied Rosie tartly. “Now come on, this won’t take long.”

Jon couldn’t help but smile at Martin’s reluctant back as he followed her out and up the stairs. “Something tells me Rosie lost money in the office pool, didn’t she?” he remarked, turning back to Basira. 

Her eyes suddenly went wide. “What the _fuck?!_ ” she snarled savagely, almost leaping backward away from him. 

“What?! What's wrong?”

“You!” Basira’s hand went automatically to a baton that was not there. "You—you _changed_.”

“What?”

“You’re all over eyes, Jon!”

Jon looked down, deeply startled and worried, and saw his hands looking back at him. He shoved his sleeves up to his elbows, and then, none too gently, his fingers flew to his face. “Oh hell...” he muttered, his stomach dropping into his shoes. “No, no no no...” _Was this what Oliver meant? That people wouldn’t see what Martin and I saw… this happened as soon as Martin left…_

“What the fuck are you and what have you done with Jonathan Sims?”

“No, Basira, I’m—this is me. I promise. I know it’s ghastly but it’s _me_.”

“Prove it,” she snapped. “Prove that you’re Jon and not the terrifying eye-monster that is standing immediately in front of me.”

“How?” Jon demanded wryly, recalling the last time he’d had this conversation with her. 

“What’s something only Jon would know?”

“I mean, I can know almost _literally_ anything…” That wasn’t strictly true at the moment, but it sounded good. “So, ask away.”

“You understand how unhelpful that is for proving identities.”

He managed a tired grin, but couldn’t muster much humor to go with it. “Sorry to be an inconvenience. Oh, no, I’ve got something. _You_ know certain details about my sexual habits, even though I never told you, because Melanie outed me to you. As a joke. While the two of you were discussing Martin’s… infatuation.”

“I… that ended up on a tape, didn’t it.”

“It did, yes.”

“Anyone here could’ve heard it.”

“Maybe, but would they be as pissed off about it as I am?”

“…Okay, that’s a fair point.”

“For the record, because this is also ending up on tape—” Jon held up the tape recorder, which had definitely not been in his hand a few seconds before. “—fuck you both for gossiping about my private life. And an extra ‘fuck you’ to Melanie for revealing what Georgie told her in confidence.”

“D’you feel better, now that you’ve gotten that out?”

“Honestly, it feels like it happened so long ago, I’m not actively angry anymore, but yes, I do feel better.”

“Right. Okay. …I’m sorry.”

“Just because you and Melanie weren’t thinking of me as a person back then doesn’t absolve you of the fact that that was an incredible shitty thing to do.”

“…Fair.”

“Right.”

“So… What happened? How’d you end up all… eyes?” Basira grimaced. “And could you… roll your sleeves down?”

He was tempted to refuse out of sheer spite, but he felt better with his arms covered. The lights in the Archive were very bright. “There was... a brief period, at the cabin, where I… evolved, I suppose," said Jon, speaking slowly and with great care. He'd never been good at lying to Basira and he didn't especially _want_ to lie to her now, but the alternative was to tell her the entire truth and that simply was not an option, not yet. "And for a little while, I had access to the combined knowledge of all humanity.”

Basira looked at him. “And you gave it up,” she said, voice flat and disbelieving.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“It would have ended the world.”

“…Right. Uh. Good reason. And the eyes are, what? Leftovers from that temporary evolution?”

“I, uh… Sort of. Let’s leave it alone, for the moment,” said Jon hastily, when he saw Basira gearing up to ask more questions. 

He did his best to behave normally after that, because Basira was altogether too eager to see him as some sort of imposter. But the truth was that he felt… wary, in her presence. His powers were slowly growing less blunted than they had been immediately after the Unchanging, and being back in the Archives was so invigorating to his senses that he almost felt sick. He could See the Eye’s influence hovering around her, trembling in the aether. But if she was aware of it, she gave no sign.

He wasn’t sure if that was comforting or not. He leaned towards ‘not.’ 

“Rosie said you were out following up on a statement?”

“Yeah, the Christopher Sheridan statement.”

“Was there... can you... productive trip?”

“Honestly, I’m...” Basira hesitated, and then sighed. “I’m not sure. I found Sheridan without too much trouble. He’s still living where he was when he gave the statement. Have you seen it?”

“Not yet. You took it with you?”

“Yeah. It’s still back at my place. I wanted to... I dunno. Sit with it a bit more. See if I had anymore bright ideas.”

“So you didn’t find… whatever it was, that you were looking for.”

“I don’t know, Jon. He was cooperative, even eager to talk… but I don’t know how any of it’s gonna help me.”

“Hmm. Have you recorded it yet?”

“No.”

“Then maybe I could help. If I could read the statement—”

“No. I mean… not yet. I want to hang onto it for a few more days. Mull over it. On my own,” she added.

“Fine,” said Jon, feeling oddly wounded.

“It’s nothing personal, it’s just… okay, that’s a lie.”

“I figured.”

“Look, I assume that once I give you the statement to read, you’ll know what I was after?”

“I’m not entirely sure, but it’s… not out of the realm of possibility.”

“Yeah. So I’m taking advantage of your current state of—”

“Eldritch marital spat?”

“Basic human-levels of comprehension. I just… I want to keep this private, okay? For a little while longer.”

“I understand,” said Jon quietly, shoving his eye-covered hands into his pockets, and turning away.


End file.
